Watch Me Sports Bar—Long Beach’s first space dedicated to women’s sports—to open July 26

Watch Me Sports Bar (stylized Watch Me!), which took over the former Playa Amor space earlier this year, will officially open Friday, July 26, at 4PM. With that opening, Long Beach will have its first space solely dedicated to women’s sports.

So what is exactly is Watch Me Sports Bar?

After announcing that Playa Amor would host its last week of service through May 31, Watch Me! Sports Bar—co-owned by married couple Jackie Diener and Megan Eddy—immediately moved into the space. With that, they impressively reshaped the space’s entirety in just a handful of months.

According to Diener, the bar has potential partnerships with the WNBA team L.A. Sparks and the Angel City F.C. professional women’s soccer team, which have already hosted fundraisers for the bar. Their primary fundraiser via GiveButter has accumulated the pair nearly $30,000 in start-up funding, used to refit the space.

What to expect from it? A damn fine collection of T.V.s showing women’s sports leagues, from the WNBA to the National Women’s Soccer League to college divisions and more. But first? The Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony (which serendipitously features Snoop as a torch carrier). And then, of course, and far more appropriately, cheering for our country’s leading Olympian, the one and only Simone Biles. (Because women athletes rule.)

Chef Charlie Ray, who competed in the Food Network’s “Battle of the Decades,” heads up the kitchen. She also previously served as head chef of the award-winning company Värt in Sweden.

The importance of the Watch Me Sports Bar space in the overall cultural fabric

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.

Wait—what happened to Playa Amor?

Playa Amor, the lauded Mexican-American restaurant from Chef Thomas Ortega and the space Watch Me Sports Bar took over, served its last week of service on May 31.

“We just can’t make it work—but we are so honored that we had the chance to serve and connect with Long Beach,” said Thomas then. 

Thomas’s words should be no surprise: Last August, the chef and restaurateur expressed deep concerns about his landlord. He felt that consistently empty promises—from property upgrades and renovations to lower rents following the build-out of the neighboring 2nd & PCH retail complex—have been pushed toward him and other tenants, all with no fruition. Thishas furthered his sentiment that the landlords were more focused on their proposed residential complex. 

Given that very residential project has moved through the entitlement process, Ortega’s accusation does not feel completely unfounded. Owners of the property never returned comment for that story.

Watch Me! Sports Bar is located at 6527 E Pacific Coast Hwy.