Sky sports recently released a new TikTok account called Sky Sports Halo, which was their supposed ‘lil sis’ of Sky Sports, but what was the plan for this account and what went wrong? 

Thursday 13^th of November 

Sky Sports started off Thursday morning with the announcement of their new TikTok account Sky Sports Halo with the following post, which has now been deleted: 

“We’re about ALL sports and championing female athletes. We’re here for the culture, community and connection. We don’t just watch sports – we live it.” 

Their intentions of this account were to make a safe space for women and young girls to watch content about every sport imaginable but where did they go wrong? 

Where did they go wrong? 

Their first issue was how they were segregating sports, making a separate account for women and young girls to learn and get content about sport felt unnecessary. Why would women and young girls need a whole account when they could just use the already existing Sky Sports accounts? It felt useless and that feeling was very much mutual among fans when they revealed the new account.  

Their next issue, which was the major cause for concern, was how they presented their content. Their posts about sport used soft pink texts with stickers on the screen, their whole colour scheme being soft pink, yellow and orange tones. Criticism came in hard when one of their posts, which showed a video of a a football match with players running with the text “How the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits”. Many were very quick to share their thoughts and opinions about the account.

“Sky Sports and football spaces in general have plenty of knowledgable women who could’ve been front and centre. Instead, ‘Sky Halo’ as the the ‘lil sis’ reduced it to a token pink, girl graphics. Talk about missing the point.” – Sam Fonseca (@SamFonseca) 

“Sky Sports made this ‘halo’ channel meant to cater to female sports fans and all they’ve done is talk about match, hot girl walks and wags. Do they think women cannot comprehend sports in a technical way?” – Saf (@SafSmiless) 

“Sky Sports Halo has got to be one of the worst concepts I’ve ever seen. So condescending. Creating a dumbed down sports channel for women Is unbelievably sexist. Incredible that is was approved and that it’s still live.” – James (@jamesdsmith)

Sky Sports have ultimately messed this idea up, with some giving criticism that is met with snarky remarks from the admin/admins. One commenter writing: “Can’t believe this is what you think female sport fans like.” With Halo responding with “Can’t believe you brought that kind of energy.” This type of ‘smart’ remark isn’t what is going to bring a community together, whether there was one to begin with, but it will cause more conflict. It shows that who ever runs the account doesn’t want to take criticism, which isn’t what is needed as criticism is a factor in everyday life that helps people improve, and improvement is what was needed with this account.  

Sunday 16^th of November  

Not even 3 days later, Sky Sports released an announcement along with deleting all of the Halo posts.  

“Our intention for Halo was to create a space alongside our existing social channels for new, young, female fans. We’ve listened. We didn’t get it right. As a result, we’re stopping all activity on this account. We’re learning and remain as committed as ever to creating spaces where fans feel included and inspired.”  

The responses came in quickly, and it wasn’t responses of sadness that the account was shutdown, but it was responses of happiness and relief. Many women and young girls raised their cheers that the account was shutdown, they were glad that their opinions were listened to and they were more than happy that Sky Sports did the right thing by ending the account.  

Many were shocked that this idea would’ve went through multiple stages inside Sky Sports, from being approved to then being planned before being fully ran. With many upset that this was allowed with no one possibly pointing out how offensive this idea could’ve been. But what could they have done instead? 

What could they have done instead?  

Sky Sports could’ve used this energy of wanting to include women in sports by implementing a pathway into media. This pathway could’ve been giving women and young girls in sports the opportunity to build experience in the media field. Sky Sports could’ve then used this to help women and young girls to get jobs in media spaces that are usually male dominated. This energy of wanting to include women could been use in this sense instead of segregating women even further when their intention was to include women, which didn’t go to plan.  

The backlash of Sky Sport Halo has seen some commenting that they believe women don’t deserve space in male dominated sports, showing how some believe this dumbed down version of sports was a good idea. All of this further showing how harmful this idea was for women and young girls in sports media.  

Overall, Sky Sports has ruined their reputation for a long time, it will be interesting to see how they will come back from this. Will they release a better apology? Will they try to sweep it under the rug to be forgotten about? Or will they try to act like the idea never existed?  Sky Sports need to show that they care about women and young girls in sports before they ruin their reputation further.

UP NEXT: Up next in our sports world, we have the Las Vegas Grand Prix! Who will come out on top this weekend? Will Lando Norris lengthen his lead? Time to find out!