On September 9, sports betting app Novig launched a campaign starring Sydney Sweeney. Female athletes and commentators pushed back fast, and the argument spread well beyond sports.
We pulled 124.5K mentions across social networks, news, blogs, forums, and reviews from August 26 to September 17, 2026, to see where the reaction landed.
TL;DR — The Quick Catch-Up
What Happened: Novig's Sydney Sweeney campaign drew criticism from the women's sports community within days of launch.
Why It Spread: The debate grew into a broader argument about agency, objectification, and modern feminism, pulling in people with no connection to sports betting.
The Friction: Net sentiment landed at -51%, with 60% negative and 9% positive.
The Tellagence Takeaway: A big share of that negativity wasn't about Novig at all. The rest came with a loud defense that kept the ad in people's feeds.
What the Data Showed
The backlash left the sports bubble
The early criticism came from people who saw the ad as putting looks ahead of women's athletic achievement. Within days, the conversation was about women in marketing broadly.
At that point, Novig wasn't just answering sports commentators. It was in the middle of a general cultural argument.
What it means: a response written for the sports community won't reach most of the people talking.
Defenders pointed to her equity stake
Supporters reframed the ad around Sweeney's business role, highlighting her equity in Novig and calling the campaign a calculated move she chose.
Plenty of them also said the quiet part out loud: the ad was built to reach men, and they didn't see a problem with that. The report found no sign of core users talking about leaving the app.
What it means: the most persuasive defense of the campaign came from the public, not the brand.
Every critique set off a defense
With both sides dug in, each critical post drew replies, which kept the ad at the top of feeds. The ad also showed up in unrelated arguments, from Canadian broadcasting debates to speculation about Tesla commercials.
What it means: the argument itself carried the campaign's reach. Trying to calm it down would also shrink that reach.
Part of the anger was about Euphoria
A large chunk of the negative mentions had nothing to do with the ad. Digital creators were criticizing the third season of Euphoria, in which Sweeney stars, for how it portrays their profession.
That separate backlash pulled the overall sentiment down to -51%.
What it means: the headline sentiment number looks worse for Novig than it is. Separate the two conversations before reporting up.
The Discover Difference
Imagine a keyword tool tracking "Sweeney" and "Novig." It sees 124.5K mentions at -51% net and probably flags a brand crisis.
Discover's clustering split the conversation apart. The anger at the ad was real and loud, but a large share of the negativity belonged to a separate Euphoria story, and the defenders had a clear argument of their own. That's a very different read for a marketing team.
Your Move
If your campaign lands in the middle of a culture-war argument, here are three ways to play it:
Option A: Stay the Course
The play: Keep the creative running, and track sign-ups and active users alongside social volume to make sure the attention isn't costing customers.
The trade-off: You accept a long stretch of negative sentiment from people outside your target audience.
Option B: Let Supporters Carry the Argument
The play: Make the partnership and equity story easy to find in press materials, without seeding talking points that read as corporate.
The trade-off: It's hard to do without sounding defensive, and critics will call it spin.
Option C: Prepare a Short Statement
The play: Have a brief response ready for journalists that focuses on the partnership and the talent's creative control.
The trade-off: Critics will stay angry, and an apology-free statement can harden their position.
About This Report
We built this report with Tellagence Discover, a Contextual Intelligence platform that turns unstructured conversation into clear cultural stories. Curious how it works? See the science.
Want to see what's driving the conversation in your category? Contact the Tellagence team.