Women's sports fans now have a dedicated space to see women's soccer, the WNBA, and much, much more: Watch Me! Sports Bar opened up in Long Beach on Friday. The establishment made history as the first bar dedicated to women's sports in the state.
Watch Me! joins a growing movement of women's sports bars across the country, starting with Portland's The Sports Bra in 2022. That bar's opening served as a catalyst for others across the country, including Seattle's Rough & Tumble Pub and Minneapolis's A Bar of Their Own.
It's a "femininomenon"
The bar is the brainchild of Jax Diener, who told LAist in March that this has been a dream more than 30 years in the making.
"So the facts are, women actually do support women," Diener said in a speech at the opening ceremony. "We've created this inclusive space for you, the community. You all will shape it. We look forward to seeing how it evolves over time."
Diener said that she'd picked July 26 as an opening date last September, working with vendors, funders, realtors and staff to put together a menu and open the bar in time for this year's Olympics.
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Diener and her co-owner and wife Emme Eddy identified the space just two months ago, working to flip it from a Mexican restaurant into a bar space in that short amount of time.
There was no shortage of celebration at the ceremony — one speaker called the opening a "femininomenon" in reference to the Chappell Roan song of the same name. Speakers also highlighted issues facing women's sports, including the pay gap between men's and women's athletes and media rights to show women's sports leagues on TV.
Prominent supporters on opening day
There were even a few prominent women's athletes in the crowd to show their support, including Saskia Webber, who played for the world champion 1999 U.S. women's national team, and Penny Toler, who scored the first free-throw and first three-point shot in WNBA history.
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson made an appearance along with his two daughters, who briefly got on mic to tell the crowd they play soccer. He stressed how important the space was to the city, especially as the city gets ready to host several Olympic events in 2028, including rowing, sailing and water polo.
"There was a press release that said I was gonna be in Paris, but there was no way that I was going to miss the opening of the first women's sports bar in the state of California," Richardson said.
And while Watch Me!'s opening was a big moment for Long Beach, the attendees Friday came from all over. Orange County, the South Bay, San Bernardino County, and the city of Los Angeles were all represented in the crowd. People in the crowd hugged and shared remembrances with friends old and new as they watched the ribbon-cutting and waited to take their seats inside the bar.
Nicki Freeman, who said she'd had the opening marked on her calendar since hearing about it in May, stressed how important this bar was for people in the women's sports community.
"This is amazing," Freeman said. "It feels really good. It feels like community coming together that has been longing for something like this."
