Women's sports are in a League of Their Own

Everyones watching women's sports, where are you?

By Zoë Meyer

In a moment of true weakness the other day, I scrolled through my high school finsta account, something that does not need to see the light of day ever again. After cringing at too many bad selfies and memes that 15-year-old me thought were acceptable, I landed on screenshots of an argument I had with a classmate over Instagram DMs, about whether WNBA players should get paid the same as NBA players. Looking back on the argument, I get what he was saying: women’s sports were not bringing in the media attention and audience that mens sports were. My question to him was: why?

Growing up I played almost every sport available including year-round basketball from third grade through high school. Sports were a pillar of my personality, and yet I had no female role models for sports. Not because there were not outstanding tremendous female athletes, but because women’s sports were not widely available or talked about, and when they were, it was about the attractiveness of the athletes. To watch the WNBA games I would need 30 different d-list cable channels and, as someone who grew up with PBS Kids Go as the only available TV channel, this was out of the question.

I vividly remember watching the USWNTs run at the 2019 World Cup sitting in my mom’s friend’s pool lounge in LA on a trip to visit colleges. I watched Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath, Kelley O’Hara, and the rest of the US team dominate the whole tournament and win the cup. Seeing women—especially queer women—at the forefront of sports that summer was a moment I will never forget.

The last article I wrote for The Wake was about the LSU and Iowa final in last year's March Madness, and I promise I have opinions on things that are not women's sports, but for right now, indulge me in my interests.

A few weeks ago I saw an advertisement for the upcoming March Madness tournament; I was nearly in tears when I saw the women's tournament being promoted right alongside the mens. Maybe it was just because sports has a soft spot in my heart, but I know seeing that advertisement as a kid would have done a lot for me. Just a few days later, I was informed that a new women’s sports bar, called “A Bar of Their Own”, was opening up here in Minneapolis. Even though I am a Wisconsinite, I have never been more excited to go to a bar than I was at that moment.

A Bar of Their Own has everything you could want out of a bar: lesbians, exceptional nachos, a women and queer-owned beer list, and, of course, over 10 screens showing all kinds of women’s sports. I was in my happy place, surrounded by people that were just as invested in the games, players, and drama (the queer interdating of women's soccer goes crazy) as I was.

A Bar of Their Own is not the first women’s sports bar in the country, and it will not be the last. It is coming at a surge of attention to women's sports, at both the collegiate and professional level. And this is on top of a huge year for US women's sports, such as Coco Gauffs’ win at the US Open, the mass viewership of the FIFA World Cup, the debut of the first professional women's hockey league in the US, and the excitement for the upcoming Olympics with standouts like Simone Biles and Sha’Carri Richardson. Women's sports are here, and they’re here to stay.

As this year's March Madness begins to unfold, I am yet again apologizing to my friends and family for watching 10-plus hours of basketball every day for the next few weeks. Yet, this year, it will be for the women's side. So far, the women's final four has sold six times as many tickets as the men's side, and Shaq said it best when he said, “the women players are kicking the men's butts… it's just a better game, just more competitive”. Even with the women's side getting more media attention and selling a higher number of tickets, it's still nearly impossible to watch the games without multiple cable channels, whereas men's games are available on the NCAA app and HBO Max. This is why bars like A Bar of Their Own are so important: they create a safe and accessible space for women—especially queer women—to enjoy these sports.

As stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers (and honestly all of South Carolina ball out), I’ll be here, at A Bar of Their Own, watching every minute.