LOS ANGELES — In the thick of March Madness, women’s basketball is seeing record-breaking numbers as the rise in popularity for women’s hoops reaches new heights. With it, there’s a new dedication to supporting women’s sports.
They say you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, so about eight months ago, Jax Diener opened the first sports bar in California dedicated to celebrating women’s sports.
“There are other sports bars out there — 99.9% of them have men’s sports on when you walk in. You might find a women’s game here or there. But we’re flipping that,” Diener explained.
Watch Me! Sports Bar was born out of a desire to feel accepted. Diener said she’d spend countless Sundays watching games at bars with friends, leaving upset each time because it was never a welcoming environment for them.
“We were made to feel like we didn’t understand the game,” she said.
She vowed then to one day open what’s now Watch Me! Sports Bar in Long Beach, speeding up her timeline to meet the new demand as more and more people grew interested in women’s sports.
Her bar drew the attention of filmmaker Kaitlyn Laabs, who included Diener’s journey in her documentary called “Untapped” about the women’s sports movement and the social and economic challenges behind opening a business like Diener’s.
“In the next year, 24 women’s sports bars are going to be opening in cities across the world,” Laabs explained. “What we’ve seen in the past two years is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of untapped resources, on top of potential for women and women’s sports to get in spaces that they haven’t been in before.”
For the first time since it began back in 1982, the women’s NCAA championship drew more viewers than the men’s last year, with nearly 19 million viewers compared to the men’s 14.8 million.
Laabs said it’s an exciting time and one that’s long overdue.
“What we’re seeing with the WNBA and with the NCAA, basketball and other women’s sports, it’s the work of women over generations fighting to get the media coverage, to get the sponsorship dollars, to show how incredible women’s sports really are,” Laabs said. “But with the extra attention and exposure, we’ve also seen the internalized racism and sexism that still exists in women’s sports that we need to eradicate.”
They’re the real stories that Brianna Appel is working to center with her marketing agency Fiveye after meeting so many amazing women in the business of sports who were being overlooked.
She was at Watch Me! Sports Bar for March Madness with WISE LA, an organization that stands for Women in Sports and Events.
“This is our moment, and it’s more than just a moment, it’s really a movement,” Appel said. “It’s time to shrink the gap between men and women’s sports, and it’s time to bring to the surface and just empower everyone on the field and off the field that makes the investment and attention on women’s sports real.”
Supporting the spaces like Watch Me! Sports Bar, that are contributing to the elevation of women and the game.
“We’re just creating a space where people know that they can come and feel safe, feel comfortable, feel welcome,” Diener said.
The WNBA just saw its most watched season in 21 years with record attendance. Diener said while there are times when the bar is packed, other days are slow and she’s calling on the community for additional support to keep her doors open.
