Far from angelic, Sky Sports’ TikTok channel Halo crashed and burned in three days

Sky Sports never needed a “lil sis”, yet for a mere three days before it got taken down following fervent backlash, the broadcaster ran a TikTok channel, Halo, with the “aim to build a welcoming community for female fans through fun, trend-led, and relatable content.” Unfortunately for Sky, they fell at the very first hurdle, because if you’re going to try and create a channel to welcome more fans into the sporting world, you cannot sideline them away from main channels as the “little sis” from the get-go.

Their questionable tagline purely set the tone for the content that was to come, epitomising the existing patronising, sexist, and condescending attitudes towards female sports fans. The irony really could not be scripted. Irrespective of what may have been noble intentions to expand the reach of sports, targeting new female fans specifically was arguably never going to go down well. With women’s sports reaching record viewership numbers and only growing, the presence of women in the sporting industry now is far from minimal. To then create a “lil sis” channel just for female fans feels completely unnecessary.

Halo, if anything, only served to entrench these sexist attitudes further

If women have an interest in sports, it’s through the exact same lens as men’s interest. Many female sports fans can likely recount a time when they mentioned the sport they follow and was immediately quizzed on every player from the last 100 years to ‘prove’ their knowledge. Halo, if anything, only served to entrench these sexist attitudes further, promoting the idea that women couldn’t possibly know ball unless it was framed through trends like “hot girl walks and matcha combos,” as one of Halo’s first videos captioned a clip of Erling Haaland.

How they got this so tonally wrong is almost wondrous considering how many stages of testing, iterating, and approval that would have been required for such a launch from one of the UK’s biggest broadcasters. To welcome new fans to sports, the environment needs to be one that welcomes all new fans, not one that explains sporting scandals “in girl terms” or combines rugby with Barbies under the assumption that women can’t simply be met where they already are – right next to men. Doubling down on existing divides between male and female sports fans will ironically only further alienate female fans. The fight is to be treated equally, not to be further sidelined.

Brands know that they should be doing more in women’s sport, but don’t know where to start

Laura Weston and Jules Hilson, Founders of See You at Jeanie’s

Sky’s own research with Gemba found that the sport itself drives interest: namely, its quality, storylines, competitiveness, and skills. When two in three adults in the UK describe themselves as sports fans, and Sky’s own research shows that 80% of UK sports fans are interested in at least one men’s and women’s sport, it’s clear that the real opportunity to increase engagement is in raising the platform of women’s sports, not patronisingly attempting an appeal to female fans of sport.

Laura Weston and Jules Hilson, the founders of women’s sports consultancy See You at Jeanie’s, told Marketing Week, “one of the biggest barriers that we hear whispered quietly by marketers is that brands know that they should be doing more in women’s sport, but don’t know where to start”. The biggest takeaway from Halo is that all brands, whether emerging platforms or legacy broadcasters, need to meet their audience where they are: already growing fans of both men’s and women’s sports. The real gap in the market is promoting the very qualities, stories, and skills in women’s sports that will drive interest.

It’s safe to say that Halo was far from being the angelic gate for more women to get into sport that it intended to be. However, it started a necessary and important conversation around women’s place in sports, both as fans and players, and how to approach them: namely, no different than men.