Subscription TV company Sky Sports has scrapped its new TikTok account targeting female sports fans after just three days, after the style and tone of its videos faced backlash.
Social media users labeled the account “condescending,” “patronizing” and “sexist,” accusing it of perpetuating the problems it purported to address.
“Our intention for Halo was to create a space alongside our existing social channels for new, young, female fans,” Sky said in a statement Sunday. “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.”
Complete with a logo drenched in bright sunset colors, the account was initially marketed as “Sky Sports’ lil sis,” accompanied by a sparkle emoji.
From the start, the intention was to create “not a women’s sports account” but “sports content through a female lens,” Andy Gill, Sky’s audience development and social media head, said in a LinkedIn post announcing the new account, which was launched Thursday.
It was this distinction that ultimately seemed to create the problem. Sky Sports deleted all the content it had posted but clips that resurfaced elsewhere on TikTok show a succession of videos with pastel, sparkly writing overlaid on them.
In one widely circulated video, Sky posted a sped-up clip of Manchester City striker Erling Haaland scoring against Bournemouth with the caption “How the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits.” In another, it posted a clip of F1 driver Charles Leclerc talking about his recent engagement and fiancée. CNN was unable to independently verify the videos.
Rather than creating a “welcoming community for female sports fans” as Gill’s LinkedIn post said the company intended, posting content like this only perpetuated stereotypes about female sports fans, hundreds of TikTok, Reddit and X users said.
And by using such a distinctive aesthetic, Sky inadvertently created a TikTok template with which other users could mock it. Suddenly, the platform was flooded with viral clips of sport, complete with pink, sparkly, tongue-in-cheek captions laid over them.
“thank you sky sports halo, I’ve finally understood why I couldn’t understand football before. It’s bc (because) there was no pink writing on screen with loads of girlie emojis,” one user wrote over a video of England’s Lionesses playing Brazil last month, set to Aqua’s 1997 song “Barbie Girl.”
“Scrums and matcha is for the girly pops,” Harlequins rugby player Orla Proctor wrote over a clip of England taking on New Zealand on…
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