How Sky Sports Halo Got It Wrong

On Thursday, November 14, 2025, Sky Sports launched Halo

The idea? create a TikTok channel aimed at female sports fans

The execution? Pastel branding, "matcha girlies," Barbies, and "lil sis" energy.

The reaction? Swift backlash and being wildly out of touch. By Saturday night, it was gone…

What was intended as an inclusive platform quickly devolved into a firestorm of criticism, branded as patronizing, stereotypical, and fundamentally misunderstanding the very audience it sought to attract.

In this article, we cover how Sky Sports Halo completely missed the mark, why they went down this route, and how we can learn from this.

Watch the full video on our YouTube channel

Why Sky Sports Halo?

Its stated mission was to provide a "safe, positive space" and a "new destination for female sports fans.

Positioned as the "lil sis" to the main Sky Sports brand, it aimed to offer "fun, trend-led, and relatable content" spanning sports fashion, lifestyle, and pop culture moments, all while championing female athletes.

Sky Sports wasn't wrong to recognize an opportunity. Women's sports are experiencing unprecedented growth.

The Womens Sports Trust reported female UK broadcast audience is at an all-time high, with them making up 44% of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 audience and 43% of the Rugby World Cup audience – the highest on record for both competitions.

With more broadcasting presence, total viewing hours for women’s sports have increased, from January to September 2025 views reached a record 357 million hours, with the average reaching nine hours and 45 minutes - both passing the previous records set in 2023.

They also report that streaming is helping reach younger audiences, with 20% of Women’s EURO streams coming from viewers aged 16–35.

The traditional linear TV viewership is declining, particularly among Gen Z. And while Sky Sports remains a dominant force, the increasing competition from streaming services are putting pressure on traditional pay-TV subscriptions.

Sky Sports has seen a decline in viewer numbers, particularly in the 2024/25 Premier League season.

Reportedly, only 28% of UK adults believe their paid TV subscriptions offer good value, and 22% of households planned to cancel within the year. 

Platforms like Netflix overtook BBC1 in audience reach for the final months of 2024, while YouTube displaced ITV as the UK's second most-watched service. One in five Brits now exclusively use streaming platforms, and 57% believe traditional TV will be dead by 2050.

Sky Sports Halo appeared to be a solution to capture a new audience, a digital-first approach to target young female sports fans on TikTok, meeting them where they already were rather than expecting them to subscribe to traditional broadcast packages.

Platforms like TikTok have become crucial for engaging younger demographics. Sky Sports themselves noted that TikTok already delivered their highest engagement rates among female audiences, making it a prime target for expansion.

Where It All Went Wrong

But, the execution… was catastrophic. From launch, Halo's aesthetic relied on pink fonts, heart-strewn edits, bubble-letter graphics, and pastel captions. The branding referenced matcha lattes, Labubu toys, and "hot girl walks," 

Referring to Halo as the "lil sis" of Sky Sports immediately struck many as condescending.

Creating a separate, women-focused channel was also seen as an attempt to "ring-fence" women's sport, implying it doesn't belong on the main Sky Sports platform alongside men's sports. This felt less like inclusion and more like segregation.

Critics argued it reduced female interest in sports to shallow stereotypes, an insulting attempt to "dumb down" or "pinkify" content for women.

The use of unrelated TikTok buzzwords like "matcha," "hot girl walk," and "Labubu" alongside sports clips was seen as patronizing, implying women could only engage with sports if it was framed within lifestyle trends.

Most damningly, despite claiming to champion female athletes, nearly half of the first 11 videos featured male athletes.

The channel was supposedly for women but primarily about men, Posts focusing on "bromances" between male tennis players or references to WAGs, rather than in-depth coverage of female athletes.

The backlash was immediate. Female sports fans called the approach "sexist," "degrading," and "cringe." Girls on the Ball asked, "one day can we please be past the pink/peach stage?!"

Users questioned whether the channel thought "women cannot comprehend sports in a technical way," and whether "little sistering" women's sports represented "a step backwards instead of forwards."

When the account admin initially quipped back at criticism with "Can't believe you brought that kind of energy," it revealed how fundamentally Sky had misunderstood the situation.

By Saturday night, they admitted, "We didn't get it right" and shut down the channel entirely.

Lessons

Sky Sports Halo's most likely expensive three-day lifespan will be remembered as the dangers of making assumptions rather than listening to your audience.

Women don't need a pink filter to enjoy sport, they need relevant content and respect for their interests. Women's sports represent a billion-dollar opportunity and one of the fastest-growing markets. 

But capturing that market requires treating female athletes and fans with the same respect as males.

The female sports audience is there, growing rapidly, and demanding better. The broadcaster that figures out how to serve them authentically will reap enormous rewards. Sky Sports had their chance. They got it wrong. Someone else will get it right.