The sports broadcasting corporation “Sky Sports” has received some backlash with the drop of their new TikTok account labeled “Halo.”
The channel’s intent with the account was to target a female audience and include that specific demographic into their sports media, but after the account went public and gained more views, people online started to give some negative responses, later resulting in the account being taken down. Social media users accused the account of committing the issues it claimed to address, calling it “condescending,” “patronizing,” and “sexist.”
The account was first marketed as “Sky Sports’ lil sis,” complete with a logo covered in sunset hues and a sparkle emoji. In the LinkedIn post announcing the new account’s opening, Andy Gill, Sky Sport’s head of audience development and social media, stated that the goal was always to establish “not a women’s sports account” but “sports content through a female lens.”
This distinction seemed to be the root of the issue. All of the content on the account was deleted, but videos with the pastel and glittery text can be seen in recordings that other influencers reposted in anger.
Halo shared a sped up video of Manchester City striker Erling Haaland scoring against Bournemouth with the title, “How the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits.” In another video, the account shared a video of F1 driver Charles Leclerc discussing his fiancee and recent engagement, not the topic of his team, Ferrari, which is yet to win a race with little amount of races left. Both videos went viral, but not for the reason they were supposed to. Instead of welcoming female sports fans, as Gill stated earlier, the channel fed into the stereotypes of female sports fans all around.
But now, Sky and Halo produced a TikTok trend that caused others to make fun of the account. The platform was overrun with sporting videos that became viral, complete with pink, glittery, humorous commentary.
After seeing that the account hadn’t done as well as they wanted to, Sky Sports posted an apology on the Tiktok page after removing all of the previous posts, stating that they “didn’t get it right.” That post has received millions of views and has their comments turned off.
