Professional surfer Bethany Hamilton and LPGA star Charley Hull have offered strikingly different messages amid the debate over Sydney Sweeney's viral Novig campaign. Hamilton shared a carousel of herself surfing, including while pregnant, and said she wanted to 'highlight what a woman in sport looks like', while Hull defended the Euphoria actress, saying modelling in an advert is 'quite literally her job'.
The split comes after Novig launched its 'Just Sports' campaign with Sweeney on 9 September. The actor appears nearly nude in the commercial, using footballs, basketballs and other sporting equipment to cover herself as the campaign promotes Novig's sports-only prediction market, prompting several elite female athletes to accuse the concept of sexualising women's relationship with sport.
Hamilton Joins 'What Women in Sport Look Like' Response
Hamilton did not name Sweeney or Novig in her Instagram caption, making the timing and imagery central to how the post has been interpreted. 'I just wanted to highlight what a woman in sport looks like,' the 36-year-old wrote alongside images of herself riding waves, including a photograph taken while she was pregnant. Her post followed similar responses from athletes who have used competition footage and training images to contrast their sporting careers with the Novig creative.
The message also carries the weight of Hamilton's own competitive history. The Hawaiian surfer lost her left arm in a shark attack at 13 in 2003, returned to the water one month later and won a US national under-18 surfing title in 2005. She later placed third at the 2016 Fiji Women's Pro, defeating then-world No. 1 Tyler Wright and six-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore during her run to the semi-finals.
Hamilton's post echoed a wider response from athletes who have explicitly criticised the campaign, including Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus and British sprinter Amy Hunt. Hunt directly addressed Sweeney after competing in Budapest, saying, 'Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like', before pointing to the 'muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears' behind elite competition. Other athletes have similarly argued that the campaign places attention on a woman's body rather than sporting performance.
Hull Says Sweeney Is 'Quite Literally' Modelling
Charley Hull pushed back on that reading in an Instagram Story on Tuesday, 22 September. 'People are genuinely getting pissed off because an actress/model is... modelling in an advert. That is quite literally her job,' the 30-year-old English golfer wrote, later adding that 'sometimes a pretty woman in an advert is just a pretty woman in an advert'.
Her response places one of women's golf's most recognisable players on the other side of a debate largely driven by athletes criticising the campaign. Hull has three career LPGA Tour wins and was part of Europe's victorious 2026 Solheim Cup team, which beat the United States 15-13 in the Netherlands earlier this month. She also finished tied for second at the US Women's Open in June, one stroke behind champion Nelly Korda.
Sweeney Had a Creative Stake in the Campaign
Sweeney's involvement went beyond appearing in front of the camera. Novig announced her as a strategic partner and equity holder when the campaign launched, while CEO Jacob Fortinsky later said she drove 'a lot of the visuals and the messaging'. He also said the company had not intended the commercial to represent women's sport, describing Sweeney as an actress communicating Novig's focus on sports.
In a statement released with the campaign, Sweeney said the idea was about 'embracing a fun idea' and putting the focus 'entirely on sports'. That statement accompanied the launch rather than arriving as a direct response to the later athlete backlash. With Hamilton and Hull now adding two sharply different athlete perspectives, the argument around the advert has expanded beyond Sweeney herself into a wider dispute over how women, sexuality and sport are represented in advertising.
