Hot girls and denim: American Eagle rediscovers a winning formula



Youth retailer American Eagle just launched a new ad campaign featuring “it girl” Sydney Sweeney from “Euphoria” — and her well-endowed fame is turning heads and shaping markets. The campaign launch, featuring the bombshell known for her curves, drove the stock up 15% in a single day.

Whatever American Eagle paid Sweeney, it was worth it. The company’s market cap jumped $400 million in one day following a 47% decline in its stock price last year. After years of hawking body positivity, it appears “hot girl summer” is once again the way to go.

American Eagle is back, reignited by the formula as old as advertising itself: Sexy sells.

The idea that hot girls leaning on muscle cars sell jeans — or anything else, for that matter — is nothing revolutionary in the ad world. Who could forget Pepsi’s 1992 ad featuring Cindy Crawford at the gas station in jeans and a white tank top? No Gen Xer on the planet could forget this ad. It was iconic — and effective.

Bringing sexy back

American Eagle’s newest campaign is a major about-face after more than a decade of jeans, car, and beer brands forcing wokeness down our gullets. Ultimately, sex sells. And pretty girls with sexy stares can sell everything from men’s deodorant to the WNBA — if only they had more Sophie Cunninghams!

Calvin Klein jeans made sexy their stock-in-trade over 40 years ago. In 1980, the premium jeans brand gave us Brooke Shields seductively whispering, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

She was 15, and it was both sordid and problematic. But it ushered in decades of “hot girls in jeans” advertising. From Kate Moss naked from the waist up in Calvin Klein jeans to Anna Nicole Smith doing her best Marilyn Monroe impression for Guess, the formula worked.

Abercrombie & Fitch gave sexy a twist with preppy hot girls and guys — shirtless — in black-and-white Bruce Weber photography. CEO Mike Jeffries was so obsessed with sexy that the brand was sued for hiring only good-looking people as sales associates in their stores.

Man boobs don’t sell

Then wokeness tightened its grip on corporate America. Sexy was out. Dylan Mulvaney cosplaying as Audrey Hepburn drinking Bud Light and overweight, nonbinary, hairy-chested men in bras and Calvin Klein jeans were in.

But the public didn’t buy it. Literally.

Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney in 2023 sparked a historic backlash. The brand plummeted from America’s best-selling beer to number three. Its market share tanked, and sales have declined more than 20% annually since.

RELATED: Go woke, go MEGA broke — this luxury company’s sales just plummeted 97%

  Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Walking back woke

But after years of brand-destroying body positivity, the remnants of normies at American Eagle took the wheel, and their sales and stock price soared. The brand is back, reignited by the formula as old as advertising itself: Sexy sells. Always has, always will.

Even Nike seems to be walking back its own woke phase. Just last week, the company ran a series of ads with U.S. Open winner Scottie Scheffler touting family values.

Another adage permeates advertising: Always include a cutaway shot of either a dog, a baby, or both. Cuteness, like hotness, sells. And nothing is cuter than golf champ Scheffler holding his baby.

Nike’s ad campaign with Scheffler comes on the heels of the company’s previous campaign with Dylan Mulvaney in a sports bra — without any boobs at all. Are we to believe that Nike has shed its wokeness? I think what’s more likely is that Nike was never woke to begin with.

Nike’s mantra is money. And execs will abandon Mulvaney as fast as you can say, “Just do it,” if it means reversing their sales decline and pleasing their shareholders.

Reigniting the normies

As Clay Travis famously put it, “The only two things I 100% believe in are the First Amendment and boobs.” We can gasp and pretend this is a controversial statement. But Travis only said what we all know to be true: Boobs are a reliable winner. Breast augmentation surgeries have experienced a compound annual growth rate of 13% per year since 2020 for a reason.

American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney campaign is not remotely “body positive,” and that’s a good thing. It pays. And I predict other brands will take note.

Returning to normie marketing means brands can advertise normal ideas to normal people without feeling bad about it any more. And we can let it wash over us in all of its visual pleasantness.

Expect a wave of ad campaigns in which marketers quietly memory-hole the failed “body positivity” experiment and return to what actually works. The brands chasing social justice won’t say it out loud, but they’re breathing a collective sigh of relief.

What The Sports Media Don’t Understand About Scottie Scheffler’s All-Consuming Faith

Scheffler doesn't play for others or even for his family. He plays for the greater glory of God, whom he entirely credits for his success.

Nike’s Scottie Scheffler Dad Ad Signals A Serious Cultural Vibe Shift

The path forward isn’t paved with more slogans, more division, or more social experiments — it’s built on the foundation of family.

Nike ditches wokeness in family-friendly golf ad: 'More of this, please!'



A Nike ad featuring the world's No.1 golfer, Scottie Scheffler, is being praised by sports fans for its focus on family.

Scheffler is not only the best golfer in the world, but he has proven himself to be a proud American and all-around decent human and family man.

Following yet another win at the Open Championship last weekend, Scheffler's sponsor, Nike, surprisingly celebrated the 29-year-old's family with a heartwarming ad.

'Finally you guys unwoke the marketing.'

Scheffler's 1-year-old son, Bennett, stole the show at Royal Portrush Golf Club; the crowd cheered as the baby tried to run up the green toward his father as he accepted the tournament trophy. A few tumbles made the moment more endearing.

This led to the father and son becoming the focus of Nike's subsequent promo, showing the family on the golf course.

"Priorities unchanged. Another major secured. The wins keep coming on and off the course for Scottie Scheffler," Nike wrote on X.

A photo of Scheffler and son playing with a golf club read, "You've already won," followed by Scheffler taking a swing with the caption, "But another major never hurt."

Sports fans were elated with the ad and immediately poured praise on Nike for straying away from progressive politics.

RELATED: 'They can't speak up': Caitlin Clark headlines latest woke Nike ad that claims women are told they can't succeed

Refreshing to see uplifting content in sports ads from Nike.
— C.Jay Engel 🌲 (@contramordor) July 20, 2025

"More of this and less of the woke BS," a golf page replied.

"More of this, please!" the American Principles Project cried out.

Another golf fan replied on X, "Finally you guys unwoke the marketing."

Hopefully someone is paying attention to how much more this ad resonated than the woke garbage 😂
— The Knowledge Archivist (@KnowledgeArchiv) July 21, 2025

The fans have correctly noticed the shift in tone from the company, as Nike is just months removed from multiple marketing disasters that completely misread the room.

One campaign featuring WNBA star Caitlin Clark received criticism for its gross exaggeration about the treatment female athletes receive.

The campaign from February promoted the idea that prominent female athletes are berated and constantly told "how they should act."

The ad went on to claim that women are told not to be ambitious and that they should not have fun.

But that commercial was nothing compared to a tone-deaf ad Nike put out in the U.K. in April.

RELATED: Nike is getting hammered for 'tone-deaf' ad at London Marathon: 'Heads need to roll'

 

  

 

Nike issued an apology for its ad at the London Marathon after it used a red-colored sign that read, "Never again. Until next year."

The ad was intended to refer to the feeling of being exhausted at the end of the race but returning to try again the following year. However, many felt the ad was downplaying the Holocaust, which has often been referenced with the phrase "never again."

If the latest golf ad is any indication of what resonates with sports fans, Nike should certainly continue its straightforward approach to win back the hearts and minds of those who buy its products.

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If We Want To Fix Our Broken Culture, We Need More Husbands And Fathers Like Scottie Scheffler

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-21-at-12.56.11 PM-scaled-e1753120747833-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-21-at-12.56.11%5Cu202fPM-scaled-e1753120747833-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]It’s not every day we see men taking their roles as husbands and fathers seriously, especially in professional sports. Yet, it should be.

A Ranking of Major Proportions

Man is a ranking animal. He is not content for there to be a multiplicity of greats, all of roughly equal worth. No, there must be a No. 1, a No. 2, a No. 3… Man must rank.

The post A Ranking of Major Proportions appeared first on .

Video: Golfer attacks NHL fighter, learns valuable lesson: 'You're not a tough guy!'



It's not often civilians get an up-close and personal look at a professional athlete's skills, but one golfer made sure not to pass up his opportunity when he met one on the golf course.

The Alberta Springs Golf Course in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, was at the center of controversy over the Fourth of July weekend when it produced an unexpected viral video featuring two groups of male golfers.

A man and his friend — the friend allegedly too drunk to put his ball on the golf tee — were apparently holding up another group of golfers behind them for over 20 minutes before an altercation broke out, the video shows.

'You're gonna get booted the f**k out of here!'

The second group finally had enough and told the first group to either move out of the way or simply drop back behind them so there was no delay.

"Drive the f**k up there or you're gonna get booted the f**k out of here!" one man yelled.

After the man filming suggested calling the police to remedy the situation, one of the golfers holding up the second group pleaded with him and stated that his friend was indeed going to play on.

As the second group continued to complain about the delay, the seemingly intoxicated golfer — still struggling to place his ball — exploded in rage after he was told that if he did not speed up he would be thrown in the lake. He soon found out he should have heeded that warning.

RELATED: UFC and Trump agree to big, beautiful event that will change American history

 

  

 

"F**king cry about it!" the man yelled back from the tee box.

Instead of simply hitting his ball, the man threw his hat to the ground and started slapping his legs while screaming, "You're a f**king pussy!"

"Let's f**king go, man!" he continued, before barreling at one of the men in the second group, who was wearing a light blue golf shirt.

As promised, the large man easily handled the golfer and tossed him into the nearby lake. Soaking wet, the man emerged from the lagoon to continue the brawl. The man in blue grabbed then him by the collar and punched him in the face several times.

"Bang! Bang!" the man in blue yelled as he punched the drenched golfer. Unfortunately, the possibly drunk man continued this cycle another two times before being thrown to the ground.

The fight was overwhelmingly one-sided, likely due in part to the fact that the man in blue turned out to be former NHL tough guy Nick Tarnasky, as noted by Barstool Sports and the Toronto Sun.

RELATED: I played against the best, but never a man. Here’s why.

  Photo by Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images

 

Listed at 6'2", 230 pounds, Tarnasky played five years in the NHL, averaging almost 100 penalty minutes per season. He was known as a tough player during his time with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers, and his stats certainly back that up.

At just 40 years old, it is not hard to see why Tarnasky was easily able to handle the golfer. He played for the San Diego Gulls as recently as 2017 in the AHL, the NHL's minor league, so it has only been eight years since he laced up his skates professionally.

As it turns out, he is still in fighting shape.

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I played against the best, but never a man. Here’s why.



It is hard to believe we have been forced into this fight.

For 28 years, I played competitively on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour, and even though it took me seven long and frustrating seasons to win my first tournament — a time when I questioned myself more times than I can count — I went on to capture 34 titles, including six major championships. That career earned me a place in the World Golf Hall of Fame and the LPGA Hall of Fame, which is the most difficult hall in all of sports to enter.

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I could compete against elite male athletes.

The LPGA has been around for 75 years, and we only have 35 members in our Hall of Fame due to the rigid entry criteria. In 2024, we added our most recent inductee, Lydia Ko. For context, Lydia has won 23 LPGA titles, three major championships, and three Olympic medals — and she just got in. It goes to show that the LPGA Hall of Fame is an elite club. I am humbled to be a part of it.

But I can promise you this: Even with the career I had, I would never have won a PGA Tour event — ever. It’s comical to think in those terms.

Women’s sports are for women

A few LPGA players have tried the Professional Golf Association Tour. Babe Didrikson Zaharias, an Olympic medalist in track and field and the original founder of the LPGA, played in one men’s event. So did Annika Sorenstam, who is one of the greatest players of all time with 72 LPGA Tour wins and 10 majors.

Michelle Wie West, who was a teenage phenom, played in the PGA Tour event near her home in Hawaii. And Brittany Lincicome and Lexi Thompson, both long hitters in the women’s game, accepted sponsor exemptions to play with the men. Not one of them made the 36-hole cut to play the weekend. The best in the history of women’s golf never made the top half of the field in a PGA Tour tournament.

On the flip side, if a struggling PGA Tour player had decided to declare himself a woman and play the LPGA Tour, that person would have shattered our record book.

Thankfully, late last year, professional golf did the right thing and instituted a gender policy that secures women’s golf for women.

Woke delusions

The fight is far from over. While President Trump signed an executive order to pull federal funding from any school or state that allows men — no matter how they identify — from competing in women’s sports, women are still being bullied, harassed, and cheated out of trophies they have worked their whole lives to attain.

Within the last few weeks, men identifying as women have won track and field and swimming championships, and a female fencer was sanctioned after she took a knee and conceded rather than compete against a biological male.

Whether it’s a transgender college volleyball player or the absurdity of two Olympic boxers who are biological men, it’s up to those of us with long, successful careers to stand up and say, “Enough!”

RELATED: Keith Self shuts down woke delusions with one word: ‘Mr.’

  Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

I was so disheartened by my home state of Pennsylvania. During a floor debate on the Save Women’s Sports Act — a bill that would do nothing more than infuse common sense back onto the playing fields — Pennsylvania state Senator Lindsey Williams said, “I want all girls to know that there are elected officials like me who believe female bodies are just as strong and fast and capable as male bodies.”

That statement was so ridiculous, I spent half a day confirming that it wasn’t a parody.

But Williams wasn’t finished. She went on:

I want all girls to know there are elected officials like me who would never underestimate your ability to beat a boy at their own sport, because that’s what the premise of this bill assumes, that female bodies are less than male bodies, that girls are at an automatic disadvantage, and can't possibly compete against boys. Even though girls do it every day.

Biological reality

I attended Furman University in the mid-1970s, where I was a three-sport athlete. In the fall, I played field hockey. In the winter, I played basketball. In the spring, I played golf. During my senior year, I focused solely on golf. But never in my wildest dreams did I believe I could compete against male athletes in any of those disciplines.

Sure, I could beat most of the random guys on campus at golf. But at the elite college level, female bodies are obviously at a disadvantage over our trained male counterparts. It’s simple biology.

I have been inspired by the courage and leadership that women like Riley Gaines and former gymnast Jennifer Sey have shown on this issue. And the number of women speaking out is growing. From disc golf and cycling to weightlifting, women are finally ignoring the insincere calls for empathy. They are saying, “No, this is not right. This is not fair. Women’s sports must remain for women.”

It is my honor to place my name among those taking that stand. Many of us fought for places to compete when none existed. We cannot surrender our sports or our spaces. This moment and this mission are too important to sit on the sidelines.

‘Stop Dunking on Defenseless Girls’: Billboards Outside Masters, Braves Game Blast Jon Ossoff Over Trans Sports Vote

Mobile billboards spotted outside the Masters Tournament and a Braves game this week called on onlookers to tell Sen. Jon Ossoff (D., Ga.) to "STOP DUNKING on Defenseless Girls."

The post ‘Stop Dunking on Defenseless Girls’: Billboards Outside Masters, Braves Game Blast Jon Ossoff Over Trans Sports Vote appeared first on .

Tiger Woods plays brutal April Fools' prank on fans: 'I can't believe I am saying this'



Tiger Woods shocked his fans with rumors of a comeback before pulling the rug with a devastating April Fools' Day reveal.

Woods has not played in a tournament since July 2024 and underwent his sixth back surgery that September. This March, ESPN reported that Woods had surgery for a ruptured Achilles, keeping him out for even longer.

Despite saying "the fire still burns to compete," Woods has said his body just is not recovering like it used to from his injuries.

This made Woods' April 1 social media post all that more shocking when he revealed to fans that he would be returning just weeks after his surgery.

"I can't believe I am saying this, but a few weeks after rupturing my left Achilles, the sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber plus the explosive lifts my doctors and trainers have me ready to play the Masters next week! Can't wait! See y'all on the course," Woods wrote on X.

While some immediately recognized the date on the calendar, other fans were flying by the seat of their pants and were ready for Woods' latest comeback.

"This better not be some cruel April Fools joke," a sports reporter replied.

"Great to see people bounce back after dark moments in their lives... go for it," another fan wrote.

Some fans even got angry with Woods for potentially jumping back into such a big competition so quickly:

"Pitching up to play majors when you have not played any competitive golf is nonsense. You either going to play competitive golf before majors or you must skip majors altogether. It's painful to watch."

— (@)  
 

Woods took pity on his fans and waited just six minutes to reveal he was indeed pulling a prank.

"P.S. April Fools my Achilles is still a mess," Woods wrote with a smiley face.

— (@)  
 

Woods was last seen on the course with cameras when he played with his son in a tournament at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club Orlando in December. During the event, 15-year-old Charlie hit his first-ever hole in one on the par-3 fourth hole with his father by his side and his sister as their caddie.

Woods then taught his son that after getting a hole in one it is incumbent upon him to buy his competitors a round of drinks.

Woods' last event was the Open Championship in July 2024, which marked the fourth tournament he failed to make the cut in. That April, he placed 60th at the Masters Tournament, the only time he advanced past the cut in the five tournaments he played in that season.

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