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Sky Sports Shuts Down ‘Halo’ TikTok After Backlash Over Tone-Deaf Content

Staff say the rollout undermined women’s sports coverage, prompting tense meetings at Sky’s West London headquarters.

Overview

  • The new channel, billed as Sky Sports’ “lil sis” for young female fans, launched last Thursday and was pulled at 9 p.m. Saturday.
  • Early posts used pink graphics, wellness tropes and Barbie imagery, and highlighted male stars such as Erling Haaland, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
  • Sky apologized on the account, saying “we didn’t get it right” and halting all activity while pledging to learn from the episode.
  • Executives initially defended the project, with Mark Allford noting a young, all-female team led the work, before internal backlash escalated.
  • Sources described heated discussions in which female staff challenged Allford and social lead Andy Gill over approval processes and the damage to credibility.