The question used to be whether a women's sports bar could survive in California. Watch Me! in Long Beach answered that in its first six months, packing the house for WNBA playoff games and Unrivaled Basketball League watch parties while three more women's sports bars opened across the state. Now the question is different: which screen will have sound tonight, and can you grab a seat before tip-off for the Fever vs Sky matchup? The answer depends on when you arrive, but the sound is guaranteed. Every game. Every screen. That's the deal Jax Diener made when she opened California's first women's sports bar in July 2024, and it's the reason fans drive from Laguna Niguel and the Valley to watch basketball in a Long Beach bar that puts women's sports first.
Karpo tracks live tip-off times, transit windows from the 405, and which screens get sound for tonight's WNBA matchups at Watch Me! and every other women's sports venue across LA County.
The bar that puts women's sports on every screen
Walk into Watch Me! Sports Bar on a game night and you'll count thirty-something screens before you give up counting. Women's college basketball on three monitors. Table tennis on another. A UConn-Creighton game in the corner. Then tip-off hits for a Fever vs Sky matchup and every screen pivots. The sound comes up. The room leans forward. This is what co-owner Jax Diener built when she opened California's first women's sports bar in July 2024: a space where women's basketball doesn't fight for one muted TV in the corner while men's sports dominate the audio.
The bar sits across from the 2ND and PCH Shopping Center at 6527 E Pacific Coast Highway, tucked into a stretch of Long Beach that doesn't announce itself with neon or crowds. The facade looks plain until you step inside and realize the entire infrastructure—the screen grid, the sound system, the sight lines—was designed around the idea that Breanna Stewart's three-pointer deserves the same audio treatment as any NBA buzzer-beater. Diener and her wife Megan Eddy, who co-owns the space, wanted that specificity. They wanted fans to walk in and know immediately that this wasn't a sports bar making a token gesture toward women's games. This was the whole point.
Watch parties with bingo boards and merch tables
Watch Me! is one of six bars nationwide that Unrivaled Basketball League selected for official watch party partnerships. The others are scattered across Oregon, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Florida, and Colorado, but Long Beach landed the West Coast anchor. That partnership means exclusive activities on select game nights: bingo boards where each square tracks specific in-game events—an airball, a Chelsea Gray assist, a Jewell Loyd three-pointer. Fans fill cards while they watch, competing for prizes that the WNBA Club of Los Angeles brings in.
During a Rose BC vs Mist game in early 2025, patrons wearing Los Angeles Sparks gear mixed with fans in Unrivaled merchandise, all tracking bingo squares as Loyd drained the team's first three and the room erupted. When Natasha Cloud appeared on screen during a commercial break, someone yelled "Gorgeous!" and the laughter rippled through the bar. Chelsea Gray's game-winning shot for Rose BC brought the loudest applause of the afternoon, the kind of collective exhale that only happens when a room full of strangers is genuinely locked into the same moment.
Nicole Jackson, commissioner of the WNBA Club of Los Angeles, described the partnership as seamless. The club coordinates watch parties, brings activities, and helps pack the house for marquee matchups. Jackson herself scored courtside Unrivaled tickets through the partnership and came back raving about the intimate arena setup. That energy—the sense that women's basketball is being treated like the main event, not the sideshow—translates back to the bar, where fans get pamphlets listing every Unrivaled matchup of the weekend and screens stay locked on the action.
Elevated food and a drink menu that overachieves
The kitchen at Watch Me! doesn't coast on typical sports bar fare, though you can get that if you want it. Diener worked with local and outside chefs to build a menu that includes vegan and gluten-free options alongside the expected wings and burgers. The goal was to make the food something people would drive for, not just tolerate. The drink menu runs deep: cocktails, an extensive non-alcoholic lineup, and a coffee bar that stays busy during daytime games.
Cole Whiter, a bartender who's worked at Watch Me! for two years, said the space offers a unique level of safety and comfort after thirteen years in food service. Whiter identifies as nonbinary and noted that the bar's queer-friendly reputation isn't just marketing. It's built into the operations, the hiring, the way staff interact with guests. The bar hosts karaoke, queer line dancing, stand-up comedy, screenings of queer TV shows, trivia nights, a queer book club, and party buses that shuttle patrons to and from local games. Diener describes the vibe as welcoming, inclusive, and inviting—terms that get thrown around a lot but here translate into actual programming and a staff that makes it real.
Not just for women, not just for queer folks
Bar manager McCoy addresses the question before it's asked: Yes, men are allowed. The bar is open to all ages, races, and genders. The focus is on showing women's sports with sound, not on excluding anyone. McCoy puts it plainly: "We've been cheering men on for decades, we love when they come in here and cheer for us." Regulars like Vivian S. make the drive from Laguna Niguel for games. The crowd skews queer and female but includes straight couples, families, and solo fans who just want to watch Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese without asking the bartender to change the channel.
The bar operates walk-ins only, though groups of ten or more can email gatherings.watchme@gmail.com to coordinate. Hours flex around the sports calendar. During the 2024 Olympics, the bar opened at 9 a.m. and ran until 9 p.m. seven days a week. Post-Olympics, the schedule shifted to 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. five days a week. As of late August 2026, weekend hours stretch from 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, closing at 11 p.m. Saturday and 9 p.m. Sunday. Weekday hours run 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, with Friday opening at noon. Monday the bar stays dark.
Three more women's sports bars opened in California since
Watch Me! was the first women's sports bar in California, but it didn't stay alone for long. Three more opened across the state within eighteen months of its July 2024 launch. The model proved viable. Fans wanted a place where they didn't have to negotiate for screen time or volume. They wanted to walk in and know the Fever vs Sky game would be on with sound, that the crowd would react when Aliyah Boston blocked a shot, that nobody would ask to flip to a men's game at halftime.
That demand turned Watch Me! into a phenomenon beyond Long Beach. Fans drive from across Southern California—from Laguna Niguel, from LA proper, from the Valley—because there's nowhere else quite like it. The bar has become a hub not just for women's sports but for the broader queer community in the region, a place where overlapping identities and interests converge around a simple premise: women's basketball matters, and it deserves the same infrastructure, attention, and noise that men's sports have always commanded.
Practical notes
Watch Me! Sports Bar is located at 6527 E Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, across from the 2ND and PCH Shopping Center. From the 405 South, exit at Studebaker; from the 405 North, exit at Westminster; from the 57 South, take the 22 West to Studebaker. Weekend hours run 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Weekdays: closed Monday, 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 11 p.m. Friday. The bar operates walk-ins only; for groups of ten or more, email gatherings.watchme@gmail.com. Parking is accessible, with ADA-compliant entrance and wheelchair-accessible seating. The venue is all-ages and offers delivery. Full food and drink menus include vegan, gluten-free, and non-alcoholic options. Phone: (562) 342-9515. Please enjoy responsibly and arrange safe transportation if you're drinking.
Tags: #WatchMeSportsBar #LongBeachNightlife #WNBAWatchParty #FeverVsSky #WomensSportsBar #QueerLongBeach #IndianaFever #ChicagoSky #UnrivaledBasketball #LGBTQSportsBar #SoCalWNBA #LongBeachEvents #WomensSportsCommunity #CaliforniaSportsBars #PCHLongBeach
Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
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Ask Karpo which Long Beach bars are showing tonight's Fever game, when the 57 South clears up before tip-off, or where else in LA County you can watch women's basketball with sound guaranteed. Karpo knows the real-time transit math from your neighborhood to every sports bar worth the drive, plus which venues actually turn up the volume when Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark touch the ball.
