On the 13th of November, Sky Sports launched a broadcast channel on TikTok called Halo. Directed at young, female sports fans, the account focused on making sports inclusive and exciting for young women within this dominant male sphere, describing itself as the ‘lil sis’ of Sky Sports’ main channel. Despite the emphasis on Halo’s good intentions for women in sports, Sky Sports has deactivated the channel following backlash about the lack of inclusivity this separate account allows, isolating women away from generic sports media.
This platform promised to be ‘amplifying female voices and perspectives’, stated by Halo itself, yet outraged fans and followers of Sky Sports encouraged it to be shut down as quick as it launched, criticising the content and messages pushed onto female sports fans. Using pink hearts and text with trendy pop culture captions was Halo’s branding, attempting to market itself to encourage a female following. Captions with buzzwords directed at female audiences, such as ‘How the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits’, being compared to Manchester City scoring against Bournemouth implies women’s inability to understand sports without it being simplified and marketed towards them.
Promoting images of dolls dressed up in Rugby shirts doesn’t scream that women are being taken seriously. Instead, this infantilises women and emphasises stereotypes which limit female expression. Following Sky Sports’ implications, the main message is that stereotypical attributions to femininity, such as pink writing and dolls, is the only way for women to understand sports.
Instead of emphasising the need for women in sports, Sky Sports chose to portray female sports knowledge not being taken as seriously as the male fans. With Halo being described as the ‘lil sis’ of Sky Sports, this abbreviation of little sister implies much more than simply being a broadcast channel within Sky’s existing media. This problematic word choice of ‘lil’ places female sports fans beneath male fans. The lack of respect shown towards female sports fans is evident, branding Sky Sports as patronising, misogynistic and ultimately sexist.
Intentional or not, pushing stereotypical gender binaries to include women is a strange way to go about inclusivity, since it isolates women from the predominant Sky Sports channel and directs this towards male fans instead. The definitive takeaway of Halo’s media is that it separates women from male sports and leaves female fans offended and belittled rather than included.
Three days after launching the broadcast channel, on the 15th of November Sky Sports pulled the plug on Halo for good. ‘We’ve listened. We didn’t get it right’ was posted on Halo’s TikTok account after deleting all other activity, apologising for Halo’s inability to provide fans with a space for inclusivity and connection. Revising their intentions for Halo following backlash, rather than realising how tone deaf and ignorant the account was in the first place, reiterates the ongoing sexism underlying our society.
Sky Sports taking accountability is a good thing, realising their mistaken statements and retracting them. But when will women in sport finally be taken seriously? Sky Sports failing to market women through stereotypically sexist branding highlights how women don’t need sports to be tailored towards their gender to peak their interest. This need to gender sport lacks inclusivity and instead separates the genders more, creating an unwelcome space for women. The wrongful association by Sky Sports to portray male dominance in sport being equal to its incomprehensibility to women is a bold and sexist angle to take. It begs the question; when will women in sport, and in general, be taken seriously?Sky Sports’ failed marketing strategy proves that all women want is to be included within sports, not patronised and isolated further away from this field. Sports shouldn’t still be defined by gender restrictions, yet Sky Sports’ intentions with Halo solidifies that women have an ongoing fight to prove their interests alongside existing sexism.
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