Sky Sports’ short-lived Sky Halo was meant to champion female fans, but was criticised for its tired stereotypes. So, how do female sports fans think Sky could mend their reputation?
In November, Sky Sports launched what they dubbed the ‘lil sis’ of their sports social media channels, Sky Halo. The accounts launched with videos that aimed to attract a female fan base, but after an influx of complaints across the internet, they were consequently shut down only three days later.
It begs the question, how could such a reputable global brand handle this launch so poorly, and has this misstep deterred future female fans from engaging with Sky Sports altogether?
Sky Sports say that Halo was intended champion female sports and female fandom. A now-deleted post read: “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.”
Despite this initial premise, Halo’s promise to champion female sport and culture fell into not entirely uncommon sexist tropes.
Videos attempting to relate to Gen Z and other young female fans included trending topics such as Matcha drinks, ‘Hot Girl Walks’, Barbie dolls, and the Chinese toy Labubus.
These themes were applied to videos of sportspeople, such as Erling Haaland, in an attempt to connect the two. Unfortunately for Sky Sports, it entirely missed the mark and was quickly parodied across TikTok by female fans.
From the fans’ perspective, the videos did not embrace female fans and celebrate sporting culture, but instead perpetuated negative stereotypes, increasing the cultural divide between female and male fans.
Across social media, outrage began to spread, and many fans made reaction videos explaining why this move was so poorly executed.
@GirlsontheBall, the award-winning football platform weighed in on X (formerly Twitter), asking the question of whether women sports fans really wanted this. Had Sky Sports consulted with any of the fans they claimed to be supporting?
Lily Baxter, a football fan now studying for a degree in sport, was immediately disgusted and offended when she stumbled upon Sky Halo on her TikTok feed.
Lily has been passionate about sport since the 2012 London Olympics, and is particularly drawn to Olympians Jessica Ennis-Hill and Nicola Adams. This interest only grew as she began competing in the sports world herself.
“In my own background, I was an athlete on a national level for badminton,” she said.
In addition to her love of her own sport, she became an avid follower of Formula One and Motorsports, even travelling to races around the world.
She is also a keen fan of the Chelsea Women’s football team. “As a fan, I was a season ticket holder at Chelsea Women’s, [only] missing a singular home game within the 2018/2019 season,
“I was truly interested in the professionalism of the sport; it wasn’t just the fact I was going to support the team, but was taking a key interest in their performance aspect – this has come on leaps and bounds since 2019.”
Lily believed that Sky Halo felt like a setback for female fans and the respect that is often difficult to gain in a male-dominated sector.
“It has always been [the same] since school, the boys asking girls silly questions, having to prove their sporting knowledge, as an audience we are presumed to be oblivious to sports, god forbid we have any pre-existing knowledge ourselves,
“Being a female sports fan is a challenging path to navigate, with a lack of acceptance as demonstrated by Sky Sports Halo, [which] represses the female sporting audiences,” she told us.
“We shouldn’t be tested or stereotyped to not understand sports – it should be the understanding that we don’t need to prove anything to anyone and be unapologetically loud and empowered to be a part of sports.”
Many fans, including Lily, were disappointed by the generalisation that Sky Halo exhibited. The simplification of sports only fuelled the stereotypes that women don’t understand sports or would need them to be translated into a language they would understand, using pink fonts and Barbie dolls.
The pushback was swift and only served to demonstrate the extent of fans’ disappointment across social media.
Female fans not only have had to deal with the ‘dumbing down’ of sports but also battle against sexist insinuations that they are only interested in the sportsmen they watch every week and not the sport itself.
In October, The Financial Times published a piece titled, “How romance readers found British ice hockey.” In this, they too insinuated that the spike of female interest in the sport was largely due to the romance novels that have recently included the sport. These messages only make it harder for women to express interest in sport and want to learn more.
It is often forgotten by people who dismiss female fans how important they are to the economy of sport. The International Sports Convention detailed in November how, “Female consumers will control 75% of global discretionary spending by 2030 and will lead 85% of household buying decisions. By 2048, women will control more than $100 trillion (£74.3 trillion) in wealth worldwide.”
Despite pumping money into the economy and sports across the world, they also found that “67% of women in the UK do not feel confident or empowered by the representation of women in marketing, and 72% do not think brands fully understand them. More broadly, women have 13% less free time than men, making efficient communication and impactful events more essential.”
For Sky Sport, the Halo misstep has affected how female fans view the brand, and with them already feeling misrepresented and misunderstood, it was a huge blow to the growing and valuable audience.
For female fans like Lily, it felt like a betrayal. She had always valued how Sky Sports was attempting to expand the female sporting experience, especially through the recent addition of female sports like netball, rugby and most successfully football to the channels.
“A reputable sporting institution such as Sky Sports creating such a regressive social media sub-brand is damaging and offensive, with a clear indication of just how they as a corporation view women’s acceptance within sport,
“On the back of this, a huge positive, I will say, [is that] the entire community of female sports fans did come together in outrage with [the] Halo account, making it viral and calling it out, it ended the account after not even a week in operation, and for that I will say Sky [Sports] under-estimated the scale of the community and their PR misjudgements.”
Halo was, as mentioned, taken down due to backlash, with Sky Sports releasing a statement of apology. They explained that they are still ‘as committed as ever’ to creating spaces for female fans, but ‘didn’t get it right’ this time.
Looking forward to future Sky Sports endeavours, Lily reflected on what she believes Sky Sports and other sports broadcasters should do if they want to encourage and celebrate female fans.
“Firstly, the biggest mistake made was generalising an entire gender of fans and assuming it’s our first rodeo within sports – let’s start there,
“Sky Sports should probably stay away from misogynistic stereotypes in future endeavours for successful PR, but more so focus on female empowerment of the fan base rather than categorisation.”
She believes that documenting the female presence within sport and prioritising the focus on female sporting achievements by using their platform for upcoming female sports stars is most important. Highlighting ‘ones to watch’ and asking the female sports fans what they want to see most.
“It’s 2026, the question that I can’t seem to shake is how such a massive corporation has the ability to make such a [colossal] mistake within their judgment? This generation of digital marketing and their roster of female presenters that work closely within the Sky Sports operations [are] viewed as some of the best their sport has seen and the ‘trailblazers’ of female sport alike,” Lily said.
“The overarching understanding from anyone who saw the Sky Sports Halo content would be [that] we have a long way to go to be accepted as legitimate fans.”
Feature image by Jeffrey F Lin via Unsplash.