Alex Call Blasts MLB: 'Get the Soft Porn Ads Off Playoff Broadcasts'
The Novig/Sweeney ad aired on TBS during ALCS Game 2. By Wednesday morning, a Dodgers outfielder was publicly tagging the league and every broadcast partner to make it stop.
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Alex Call, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, fired a public broadside at Major League Baseball Wednesday morning, tagging the league and its three playoff broadcast partners on X: "Can we please get the soft porn ads off playoff broadcasts, TBS, Fox, NBC, @MLB?"
Call followed that with a second post explaining his position. He has a son who wants to watch baseball with his dad, he wrote, and he should not have to be on guard for a "half-naked" person to appear on screen at any moment during America's Pastime. Yahoo Sports (The Big Lead) reported the posts Wednesday.
The ad that triggered it
The target of Call's complaint is Novig's "Just Sports" campaign, which features Sydney Sweeney nude with sports equipment placed over the frame. The ad first launched September 9. On Sunday, October 11, Sweeney posted a sequel: this time she wears Novig-branded underwear and holds footballs. The original ad aired during ALCS Game 2 on TBS on Tuesday, October 13.
Call is not the only one who objected from inside the sports world. Genevieve Albernaz, wife of Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz, posted a similar objection on X during the same ALCS broadcast, per Yahoo Sports. A wave of female athletes, including British sprinter Amy Hunt and Olympic water polo silver medalist Tilly Kearns, had criticized the ads separately since September.
Novig's answer: Sweeney made this
Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky addressed the controversy at a Front Office Sports panel Tuesday, October 13, the same night the ad aired during the ALCS. ABC7 reported Fortinsky's position plainly: Sweeney "was driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging." The company, he said, is "hugely supportive of women's sports" and "very happy with how positive the feedback has been overall."
Sweeney is not just a paid spokesperson for Novig. She holds an equity stake in the company, rewrote the original script, and approved the final camera angles. When Call asked who put the ad on TBS, the company's own CEO answered: the person in the ad did.
The ad is already working by the only number Novig tracks
The moral objection may be loud, but it is not slowing the business. The Novig app reached No. 11 in the App Store the week of October 11. The company's valuation reportedly climbed from $500 million to $2 billion since the campaign launched. Trading volume surged 94% and first-time depositors jumped 218% in the 20 days around the original ad, per CNBC.
Call's complaint is legitimate on its own terms: parents have a reasonable interest in not having to shield their kids' eyes during a baseball playoff game. But the complaint lands at the wrong address. MLB did not design the ad, Novig's board did not design the ad, and the broadcast networks are running a paid placement. The person who designed the ad, per the CEO, is Sydney Sweeney.
And Sweeney's design goal was not to pass Alex Call's test. She has an equity stake in a company that just went from $500 million to $2 billion in valuation on the back of a controversy she engineered. The Dodgers outfielder tagging MLB is exactly the kind of earned media the campaign budget could not have bought.
MLB has not commented. Neither have TBS, Fox, or NBC. Neither has Sweeney.
Ad Watch News is an independent commentary site with no affiliation with Sydney Sweeney, Novig, MLB, Alex Call, or any party named here. This piece draws on published sources listed below.
Sources & further reading
- Yahoo Sports / The Big Lead: Dodgers outfielder Alex Call blasts MLB for airing Sydney Sweeney Novig commercial (Oct. 14, 2026)
- Newsweek: Dodgers' Alex Call calls out MLB over Sydney Sweeney Novig commercial (Oct. 14, 2026)
- ABC7: Novig CEO says Sydney Sweeney was 'driving a lot of the visuals' behind controversial commercial (Oct. 13, 2026)
- Yahoo Sports: Parents react to inappropriate commercials during playoff broadcasts (Oct. 14, 2026)
- The Hollywood Reporter: Sydney Sweeney's sports ad backlash, sexualization of women in sports debate (2026)
- Wikimedia Commons: SydneySweeney-TIFF2025-03 (JoshPopov, CC BY 4.0)
