Your article (Sky Sports ditches ‘unbelievably sexist’ TikTok channel Halo after three days, 16 November) exposes a wider truth: sports marketing still treats women and girls as a single homogeneous group. Whether through a TikTok channel pitched at the “girlies” or the everyday imagery in gyms and sports spaces that doesn’t represent all women, it is consistently missing the mark.
Halo aimed to create an inclusive space for female sports fans, yet its trend-driven tone reduced women’s love of sport to a single characteristic. None of this is new.
What’s needed is a fundamental shift. Women and girls deserve to see their genuine enjoyment of getting active reflected back at them. This isn’t about chasing trends, it’s about undoing generations of exclusion and showing that every way of moving counts.
Representation matters because it shapes our sense of belonging. Despite trying to engage women in the sports sector, marketing risks alienating women and girls if it is not representative of them. Sport and physical activity should be for all women and girls, whatever their background. Until that picture changes, our work is not done.
Kate Dale
Director of marketing, This Girl Can and Sport England
