By: Lily Rand
Photo Editor
Growing up playing softball, I heard the comparisons constantly. Baseball was harder. Throwing “like a girl” was an insult. Even when those comments were meant as jokes, they carried the same message; girls’ sports were somehow less valuable.
I grew up always being taught there was nothing a boy could do that a girl could not do. Still, I spent years being reminded that many people saw girls in sports differently.
Earlier this month, actress Sydney Sweeney appeared in an advertisement for the sports betting app Novig, sparking criticism from female athletes and debate across social media. The campaign featured Sweeney posing with sports equipment as the only thing covering her body as part of the company’s “Just Sports” campaign.
While the ad was designed to sell a product, the conversation surrounding it felt much bigger than one advertisement. One line from the advertisement stood out to me more than anything else: “Think you know sports, prove it.”
While the slogan was intended to encourage people to use the betting app, it reminded me of a frustration many female athletes know well. Women have been proving themselves for years, yet they are still expected to justify their accomplishments in ways male athletes are not.
The answer to that question should be so obvious by now; they already have.
As a softball player, I think about athletes like Jennie Finch, who helped countless young girls believe they belonged on the field. I think about my first female softball coach, too, whose favorite saying was, “Attitude is everything.” At the time, that seemed like a simple piece of advice. Looking back, I see how it taught us to overcome criticism, self-doubt and the stereotypes that often follow female athletes.
Athletes like Finch, who became one of softball’s most recognizable players, Serena Williams, who transformed women’s tennis, Simone Biles, who redefined what was possible in gymnastics, and Caitlin Clark, who helped bring new attention to women’s basketball, became role models through talent, discipline and years of hard work. They proved themselves long ago.
Women have spent decades proving they belong, yet discussions about female athletes still center on appearance rather than achievement. Some point to revealing photoshoots in publications such as Sports Illustrated, and they are right.
However, athletes earned recognition through their performances first. Their photoshoots did not make them athletes; their achievements did.
That is why the reaction to the Novig advertisement resonated with so many female athletes. The frustration was never simply about what Sydney Sweeney was wearing or not wearing. It was about seeing attention directed toward a woman’s body in a conversation connected to sport achievement.
The Novig advertisement succeeded in getting people talking. But the reason people are still talking about it goes beyond one actress or one advertisement. It is about the ongoing fight for women to be recognized for what they can do rather than how they look.
The field does not care what you look like. It cares about effort, determination and ability. Female athletes have already proven they belong. The question is why society keeps asking them to prove it again. If sports have taught me anything, it is that greatness does not have one look.
Every girl deserves to know that she belongs exactly as she is.
