Sky Sports Halo: How did Sky get it so wrong?

Written By Alex Humphries

Sky Sports’ Halo TikTok channel lasted less than three days.

Launched as the “lil sis” of Sky Sports and billed as a brand-new channel “created specifically for female sports fans”, it was shut down almost as quickly as it appeared after a wave of criticism that called it patronising, sexist and out of touch.

The content mixed pink, heart-heavy branding with references to “matcha hot girl walks”, dolls in rugby shirts and simplified explainers of serious sporting stories. It looked less like something built for real fans, and more like a cartoon version of how a boardroom thinks young women behave online.

On its own, that would be clumsy but forgettable. What makes Halo more important is the context. Only a few months earlier, Sky had released a major study on women’s sport fandom that should have killed this idea long before it left the pitch deck.

Halo is not just a bad channel. It is an example of what happens when a brand ignores its own insight, believes its own story more than its audience, and creates something for a stereotype instead of for real people.

The data said one thing. The channel behaved as if the opposite were true.

In April 2025, Sky and Gemba published research on women’s sport fandom in the UK. The core findings were clear.

Women’s sports fans are not niche. Around 80% of UK sports fans are interested in at least one men’s and one women’s sport, rising to roughly 85% in under-35s. Fans who follow both men’s and women’s sport tend to spend more time with sport overall and are more likely to pay for subscriptions. The biggest and most valuable group are the people who watch both, not the people sitting on the edges.

The study also underlined that interest is driven by the sport itself: quality, competitiveness, storylines, skills and relatability. Fans said they want content that treats women’s competitions seriously and shows the same depth of analysis and coverage that men’s sport already enjoys. The conclusion was simple. Women’s sport has broad appeal. Gender is not the main driver of interest. Visibility and depth are.

Against that backdrop, the logic for Halo gets shaky very quickly. If women are already serious, knowledgeable fans who follow mainstream coverage, do you really need a separate, softer channel to “help” them into sport?

“Lil sis” is not a neutral phrase

The way Halo was branded told you how it had been framed internally.

Positioning it as the “lil sis” of Sky Sports established a hierarchy from day one. The main channels are the real thing. The little sister is the side-brand. That might sound harmless in a brainstorm, but for an audience that has spent years asking to be taken seriously, it sends a very clear signal: this isn’t for you at full strength, here’s a cut-down flavour instead.

The aesthetic followed the same path. Bright pink and peach graphics, heart overlays, lifestyle-first captions, meme references and “girl-coded” language sat front and centre, often overshadowing the sport itself. Some early posts barely focused on women’s sport at all, instead wrapping men’s sport stories in a “for girls” tone.

If you accept the study’s conclusion that women’s sports fans care about technicality and relatability, that they already understand sport and want coverage that reflects that, then Halo’s choices look like the exact opposite of what was needed. It felt like marketing trying to tap into a trend, not a broadcaster respecting its audience.

Senior endorsement amplified the misread

This wasn’t a rogue social experiment that slipped out unnoticed.

Jonathan Licht, Sky Sports’ managing director, promoted Halo on LinkedIn as a big moment, inviting people to “say hello” to a new TikTok channel created specifically for female sports fans. The tone was proud and confident. This was presented as a flagship idea, not a tentative test.

Sky’s head of social and audience development, Andy Gill, went further. In his own LinkedIn post, he said he “couldn’t be prouder and more excited about this launch”, and emphasised that the project had been “driven by the women in our team and embraced and supported by all across the business.”

Those posts tell you two things. First, the project had senior backing and internal momentum. Second, it was being used as proof of how progressive Sky was, not just as a piece of tactical content. When something positioned that way collapses in three days, the issue isn’t just the idea. It is the judgement behind it.

The apology reveals the underlying assumption

When the backlash arrived, Sky pulled the majority of content from the Halo channel and issued a statement:

“Our intention for Halo was to create a space alongside our existing channel 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.”
— Sky Sports

It’s a short, polished statement, but a couple of phrases are doing a lot of work.

Calling the target audience “new, young, female fans” fits the idea that women are just now arriving in sport, unsure and in need of help. That simply does not match reality. Many of the women who criticised Halo have spent years watching football, cricket, rugby, motorsport and more. They subscribe, attend, buy shirts and argue about tactics. They are not tourists.

Then there is the line about “a space alongside our existing channel”. That is the same separation baked into the “lil sis” identity. It assumes women’s needs are best met in a side-room, not in the main space. If your own research says the most valuable audience is the one that follows both men’s and women’s sport, and that gender is not the primary driver of interest, building a parallel channel based on gender starts to look like a very odd response.

The statement admits that the execution missed the mark. It does not really confront the fact that the brief was flawed to begin with.

Where the process actually broke

For Halo to go live, it had to clear a lot of internal gates: strategy, audience insight, creative, editorial, brand, compliance, platform and leadership. There would have been previews, treatments, sample videos and maybe even test posts.

The early content that has been widely described paints a clear picture: pink glowing text, “hot girl walk” references, mash-ups of Barbies and Labubu dolls with rugby and football, simplified explainers of scandals like Crashgate “in girl terms”. That’s not subtle. You don’t need a PhD in fan culture to see the tone problem.

So either a lot of people didn’t see it, which suggests homogenous thinking and lack of lived experience in those rooms. Or people saw it, but felt they could not challenge the direction once senior figures had publicly tied their names to it. Neither explanation is encouraging.

The fact it was shut down in under three days, with no attempt to reframe or defend it, tells you something else. Once the idea made contact with reality, there was nothing solid to stand on.

The backlash was not a storm in a teacup

The reaction to Halo cut across outlets and audiences.

Mainstream news and media described the channel as sexist, patronising and “unbelievably” out of touch. Women’s sport outlets and fan communities said it trivialised their interest rather than championing it. Mumsnet threads and football subreddits were full of people asking who on earth this was for, and how it had cleared multiple layers of management. TikTok comments from women who already follow Sky’s regular coverage pointed out that they do not need sport “translated” into girl-speak.

Crucially, critics were not complaining that Sky had created something aimed at women. They were complaining that, given the size and maturity of the women’s sport audience, this was the best Sky could come up with.

Financial and business press then pointed out the wider risk. However small the direct production cost, a public failure like this raises questions about internal decision-making, especially when senior leaders have just finished praising a launch in public. For a company positioning itself as a long-term leader in women’s sport, that matters.

What Sky could have done instead

If you take Sky’s own research seriously, a better direction is obvious.

Women’s sport fans are already here. They follow the Women’s Super League, international football, cricket, rugby, netball, athletics and more. Many also follow men’s competitions. They want more coverage, not a different kind of coverage. They want to see women’s games in the main feed, not tucked away.

With that in mind, the same budget and energy behind Halo could have been channelled into:

  • Lifting the volume and prominence of women’s sport clips on the main Sky Sports TikTok and social accounts

  • Commissioning creators, journalists and analysts who already talk about women’s sport with authority

  • Telling deeper stories about players, clubs and leagues in the same style and tone as equivalent men’s coverage

None of that requires a new “lil sis” brand. It requires adjusting the core brand so that it properly reflects who the audience already is.

What everyone else can take from this

Halo is not only a story about women and sport. It is a story about what happens when a brand lets internal narratives outrun reality.

If your own study tells you women’s sports fans are not niche, that gender is not the key driver of interest and that the biggest opportunity lies with people who watch both men’s and women’s sport, you cannot then behave as if women are novices who need a snackable side-channel. If your senior leaders are publicly proud of a project that collapses within days, you need to look at how ideas are being challenged before they leave the building.

There is also a more uncomfortable point. Saying “this was driven by the women in our team” does not stop something being patronising if women outside your walls are telling you it is. Representation on a project only matters if the brief is sound and people feel able to push back.

The real fix is less glamorous than a new TikTok brand. It is about hiring people who understand your audience, listening when your own data contradicts your assumptions, and building from what fans actually do and say, rather than what looks good on a slide.

Women don’t need a little sister channel. They need the main channels, the main brands and the main decision-makers to treat them as the serious, long-standing, knowledgeable fans that they already are. Sky’s own research says that clearly. Halo is the example of what happens when your marketing forgets it.

Alex Humphries
Next

You don’t need to email everyone. You need to email better.