Wilka’s Sports Bar has carved out a loyal customer base: women’s sports fans. (Credit: Rachel Zhong)
With a beer in hand, cheering, and booing with a roomful of strangers wearing the same color seafoam green jerseys was how New York Liberty fans watched playoffs – at Wilka’s Sports Bar on 241 Bowery Street. The bar was officially part of the Liberty’s new Bar Network, announced in May, which included over a dozen bars across New York City as official viewing spots for every away game in the 2025 season.
Liberty was the first to do it in the WNBA, followed by similar initiatives from the Connecticut Sun Bar League and Atlanta Dream’s partnerships with local bars, all to reach and engage fans off the court. And the momentum was visible: ESPN reported that this last season was the most-watched WNBA full season in league history.
The first Liberty playoff game was “insane,” said Lauren Louise, co-owner of Wilka’s, describing the bar so full that people were “literally outside watching through the windows.”
What happened at Wilka’s was years in the making. Three years ago, fans on Reddit had sought bars to watch games under the handle r/NYLiberty. By the time Bar Network launched, that hope had turned to more anticipation, and people wanted to visit the locations. In parallel, Wilka’s inspired its own wave of anticipation on the internet, resonating with fans who had been waiting for a women’s sports bar in New York City. When the two intersected, a community that had once existed online came to life.
Two days after that night, Louise opened her phone to find 600 new TikTok followers, all within three weeks of Wilka’s opening. “Word of mouth has really been it,” she said, referencing their growing clientele. And partnering with local groups and sports teams, like the Liberty, really helped spread the word.
The energy was mirrored at The Bush, a dyke bar at 333 Troutman St. in Brooklyn, and even more, reshaping the atmosphere of sports watching.
“It’s such a different vibe” from a male-oriented sports bar, said McKenzie Fleischer, a fan of both Liberty and the bar, who visited the bar on her own after her roommate attended a watch party. She saw the bar as a queer space beyond clubbing or drinking – a place for her friends to meet people, go on a fun date, and, most importantly, watch the game without worrying about “a gazillion subscriptions” to various streaming platforms and cable channels.
“It’s a great way to watch, to build community,” Fleischer said.
These watch parties have always drawn a diverse crowd, said Trae Higgs, the events manager at The Bush. It’s not just the loyal fans, but also people who are new to basketball; they see it as a place to ask questions and learn, unlike at men’s games, where you’re expected to already know what’s going on.
And it’s not that the tension isn’t high here, it feels different – passionate without the usual “hostility.” Around the room, there are coasters, napkins, stickers, towels, and a rainbow flag printed with the Liberty logo, all supplied by the Bar Network.
“We are cute in here. We have disco balls and colorful lighting,” Higgs said.
The bar never had to market in a specific way; they just connected with their existing audience authentically.
“They’re supporting our individuality while also saying, ‘well, these are all the places you can go, and you can find what you like within these bars,’” said Higgs.
Not every bar in the network is women-focused. Some show all sports at once, which can be challenging when a Liberty game overlaps with football.
“It’s tricky, but we do prioritize Liberty,” said Ian Braddy, general manager at Fulton Hall, a neighborhood bar that’s three blocks away from Barclays Center. “It’s hard on a Sunday when there are, like, eight football games and most people would watch that.”
He said the Bar Network helps fill the gap for smaller bars, with fewer TVs, that can’t take requests or make room for women’s basketball, which frustrates fans.
This demand isn’t new, said Abby Dowd, the co-managing partner at Blue Haven South on 121 Fulton St. What’s been missing is the access. Now that bars like hers stream the games, she added, for liberty, “nothing will make a splash like that [the Bar Network].”
On Sunday, Sept. 14th, when Liberty and Mercury played in Game 1, viewership rose 19% from the same timeslot last year, averaging 481,000, despite going head-to-head with this season’s most-watched NFL game so far – a rematch of the 2024 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. Earlier in the season, a regular-season Liberty game in May became the second-most-watched game on CBS.
“Sports bars can be traditionally pretty male-dominated spaces, obviously,” said Dowd. “I think there can be a little bit of a stigma about maybe men don’t want to see these games, and they’re like, ‘Ugh, why is that on?’ But I would say overall, they’re interested, especially in the New York team that’s doing well.”
She makes sure Liberty is always showing in the mix of sports at her bar, where all games and audiences can coexist. Sports bring people together, and a “sports bar just doubles down on that,” she said.
For women’s sports, Louise said, creating these spaces is still “barely scratching the surface.” Many landlords rejected her idea of a women’s sports bar, and after it opened, she received hate comments on TikTok and Instagram messages checking if the games would really be shown.
“People are still not used to this happening,” she said, referencing women’s sports. “It’s always been an event and never had its own space like a casual thing.”
But it’s already changing for fans like Jeffrey Stulmaker, an avid Texas volleyball supporter who quickly became a regular once he realized how easy it was to catch the games.
“I know I’ll be here not just for Texas volleyball, but for all women’s sports – not just the ones I already follow, but the ones I’ll start to learn about and become fans of,” he said, hoping that his volleyball match would finish in time to catch his first Liberty watch party, for Game 3.
About the author(s)
Rachel Zhong is an M.S. student at Columbia Journalism School covering sports, culture, and business.