Watch Me! Sports Bar Verified listing

Watch Me Sports Bar (stylized Watch Me!), which took over the former Playa Amor space in 2024, offers Long Beach its first space solely dedicated to women’s sports.

Ultimately, there are two things to highlight about the opening of Watch Me Sports Bar. It is the obvious one—a space dedicated to women’s sports—and the other somewhat obvious one—this is a space for queers as well. And one owned by queer women.

And it’s the only space of its kind in the entire state.

On the first note, women’s sports are growing at nothing short of a meteoric rate. According to Nielsen, the organization overseeing television viewership, the WNBA draft audience increased 42% between 2022 and 2023 and 89% with female viewers. The 2023 NCAA final tournament? It saw a 103% increase over the previous year’s viewership, drawing in nearly 10 million viewers watching Iowa and LSU duke it out. The Women’s World Cup? In 2019, 34% of the global population said they were excited about it. Come 2023, that jumped to 41%.

On the second note, the need for queer-owned spaces is essential for Long Beach’s LGBTQ+ community—especially the women of the queer community, who often see queer spaces dominated by men. After all, it took decades upon decades of consistent patronage by queer women for The Sweet Water to finally raise the lesbian flag permanently, signaling the space’s dedication to the lesbian community.

Watch Me Sports Bar is important beyond the investment it’s providing to the city.