(Image via BBC)
Volunteer Writer: Mariana Peñafiel Ide
Email: mpenafiel@umassd.edu
Sky Sports decided to take the initiative to create a “safe” and “inclusive” space for female sports fans. Their great idea? A TikTok account called “Halo Sky Sports” that was launched on Thursday, November 20th, with a now-deleted post that claimed, “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.”
Then, in a plot twist no one saw coming, they branded it as “Sky Sports’ lil sis.” From there, they proceeded to post photos of shirtless athletes, fill everything with glitter, pink fonts, puppies, labubus, and they avoided using any actual sports terminology because, obviously, women are far too stupid to understand how sports actually work.
The page was up for three entire days before being deleted from the instant backlash it caused.
In those days the TikTok account posted things like a video showing the Manchester City player Erling Haaland scoring a goal against Bournemouth after a great set-up from his teammate Rayan Cherki with the caption saying,“How the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits.”
Or a video of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton colliding in Silverstone 2021 with the words in pink saying, “tfw you spill matcha on your labubu and you ran out of tampons to clean it up.”
The account was well received by… absolutely no one, and women were quick to call out the ridiculous and absurd amount of stereotypes and sexism displayed in ‘Halo’.
The main criticism users had was how Halo Sky Sport were infantilizing women and treated them like they were not smart enough to understand sports.
A viewer commented on Halo’s account, “We’ve spent the last 50 years trying to come away from the stereotypes around women’s sport and trying to make women’s sport seen as an entity in itself rather than just an extension of what men can do. We deserve our own space, something that’s ours. We don’t need to be the ‘little sister’ to anyone.”
The sports journalist, Kristen Gott said to ABC, “I love makeup and Barbie and matcha and all that stuff, but I watch sport for the same reason as men do — for the sport.”
Halo sky sports were the wrong solution for the right problem.
Women are indeed less interested in sports overall. The Women and Sport research by REPUCOM found that nearly 70% of men follow sports, compared with just 46% of women.
And although this percentage is growing year after year, there is still a significant gap between the amount of male and female sports fans.
But this has nothing to do with women’s “little brains” being unable to comprehend sports if you don’t put glitter in it. It has to do with women being looked down over and over again in the world of sports.
No one likes to be in a space they are not welcome—in a place they are judged or mocked for what they like; in spaces where they don’t feel represented, heard, or seen.
Studies show that women’s sports account for only 15% of media coverage. Also, twice as many girls as boys abandon their sporting careers before the age of 14—and it is not because of a lack of passion or ability.
It’s because of a lack of access, safety, social stigmas, or a lack of support in general.
The real problem is that they are systematically excluded. Leagues, broadcasters, sponsors, and even fan communities often overlook female fans or treat women’s sports as secondary. And an account that dumbs down sports for women only perpetuates this exclusion.
Women don’t need sports simplified so they can understand. They don’t need a TikTok account putting glitter and pink emojis so she can get the rules of football. They don’t need the sport broken into bite-sized, infantilizing pieces.
What female fans do need is to be taken seriously. They need sports coverage that treats women’s events with the same respect and visibility as men’s rather than burying them in tiny segments or ignoring them entirely. They need their knowledge to be acknowledged without having to prove it twice.
They need to be treated with respect just like male sport fans are treated.
Because women, at the end of the day, make up half the population. And female fans buy the jerseys, show up to the games, fill the stands, watch the races, follow the stats, and support the teams just like any other male fan.
A female fan is a sports fan.
After three days of glitter, pink captions, and weird comparison with matcha, Halo Sky Sports finally deleted all their highly educational videos and replaced them with an apology that read,
“Our intention for Halo was to create a space alongside our existing social channels 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.”
Surprisingly, the apology wasn’t overloaded with glitter emojis. Looks like they knew that women didn’t need pink fonts to get the point after all.