Recently Sky Sports launched a new TikTok account called Sky Sports Halo. This account was aimed to introduce girls to sport and to create a safe space for girls and women in sports. In theory this could work, however Sky massively missed the mark. Instead of empowering women and showing girls what women can do in sport, they added to the ongoing girly stereotypes and made it seem as if girls couldn’t understand or enjoy sports if it wasn’t dressed in pink. They made posts comparing football to a ‘hot girl walk with matcha’, adding pink text and girly visuals to their videos and labelled the account ‘Sky Sports younger sister’.
This account was quickly met with backlash from sports fans and women all around the world, women creating posts saying, ‘we always understood’ and ‘we never needed girly visuals to understand’ and even making parodies of the clips. As a result of this backlash, Sky Sports released a statement apologising and removing all their videos on the account. While it is important they recognised the mistake they had made, this should never have been an issue. This account should never have been made. Although it does expose a deeper issue in sports surrounding female athletes and female fans. There is a deep-rooted sexism within women’s sports that we need to talk about.
Since the Euros in 2022 we have seen a big increase in fans and support within women's football and widening to other sports. Attendance at matches has skyrocketed with Arsenal women now selling out the Emirates stadium on three occasions and the 2025 Euros having record breaking numbers of attendance at the matches and viewings on TV.
The numbers have been very impressive, but with growth and added exposure, we are also seeing a huge increase in hate online.
It has become a common occurrence that when you go onto a post about women's football on a page such as BBC Sport or Sky Sports, there will be comments underneath with sexist hate comments, calling for women to ‘go back to the kitchen’ or saying ‘no one cares’. Most, if not all, these posts come from men, which is why I understand the meaning behind Sky Sports Halo; unfortunately the execution was poor and disappointing.
Women have always been in the sports space. The comments and misinterpretation of what women within the sports industry needs must stop. It should be expected that women do know the rules, they do understand the competitions, that they are there for the sports, not aesthetics or attractive athletes instead of the other way around, instead of being questioned to name five players or explain the offside rule.
There is currently a divide between men and women when it comes to sports. This is not what we should be introducing younger fans into. They should know that everyone can watch sports, understand it and enjoy it.
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