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In July, Novig founder and CEO Jacob Fortinsky told Front Office Sports that despite Kalshi and Polymarket’s head start, he was “very optimistic that a year from now we will very much be one of the first companies people think of when they hear about prediction markets.”
Turns out he didn’t need nearly a full year.
On Wednesday, Novig released a racy new ad featuring movie star Sydney Sweeney in which she is completely naked, covering herself with footballs, basketballs, and hockey pads. The commercial—one of three new ads from prediction-market platforms featuring celebrities that have generated buzz this week—immediately went viral. (Polymarket’s ad featured a crush of athletes and celebrities horsing around at Polymarket’s offices, including LeBron James, Eli Manning, Derek Jeter, Rajon Rondo, Reggie Bush, Spike Lee, and Emily Ratajkowski; Betr’s ad starred Jeremy Piven and Adrian Grenier from Entourage.)
Within hours the Novig ad had racked up millions of views across X/Twitter and Instagram.
“Sydney is great at captivating audiences and being the center of attention,” Fortinsky told FOS in an interview Wednesday afternoon after the ad dropped. “In some sense, it forces us into the national discourse.”
Fortinsky claimed it was Sweeney who approached Novig and was “interested in some kind of equity partnership.” She’s now an equity holder in the company, although he wouldn’t reveal her ownership stake or how much the company paid her to appear in the ad.
“We’re very excited to have her on the cap table,” he said.
According to Fortinsky, Sweeney was drawn to Novig because its product is solely focused on sports. Although he didn’t name competing platforms, he told FOS Sweeney was “uncomfortable” with some markets that other companies in the industry offer.
In the ad, she parrots something Fortinsky posted on X/Twitter: “No wars. No death. No politics. Just sports.” He said she “helped craft that message.”
Fortinsky also defended the scandalous content of the ad—which is so racy it earns an adult content warning on Twitter—by pointing out that “trading is for adults” and that Novig users must be 21 or older to use his platform (Kalshi and Polymarket both allow people as young as 18).
There will be more Sweeney ad spots to come, including a “responsible trading spot.”
Sweeney told Complex the commercial was meant to “really bring the concept of ‘just sports’ to life,” and touted the “transparency and efficiency” of Novig.
“I don’t like to just put my face on something,” she said. “I really want to be able to get into the weeds of it with an amazing team. And I got to meet the Novig team. Jacob’s incredible, and I believed in him as a founder.”
All of the prediction markets have been in a race to sign marketing partnerships with the big sports leagues and teams, and Kalshi and Polymarket have gobbled up the lion’s share; both are official partners of the NHL, while Polymarket has agreements with MLB, MLS, and UFC. Those two industry giants have also made many team-level deals, with Kalshi recently landing five MLB teams as partners while Polymarket teamed with the Yankees.
Novig, which has raised more than $100 million since its 2021 formation, had a short-term partnership with LIV Golf during the Masters Tournament, and was the first prediction-market platform to team with an MLB team, the Mets.
Fortinsky said he’s fine with Novig missing out on some of the big-money league-level partnerships—sources told FOS that Polymarket’s MLB deal was worth up to $300 million over four years, for example.
“We’re not interested in necessarily winning every bidding war,” he said. “For us, this was a very concentrated bet. It was a real decision that this is how we’re going to spend the bulk of our marketing dollars going into football season.”
