‘It's a movement': Silver Lake is home to L.A.'s first women's sports bar
When Janie and Stephanie Ellingwood went to a local brewery one night to watch a U.S. Women's National Team soccer game with some friends, they didn't think it would be a big deal to ask the staff to turn on the sound.
The bartenders had always been friendly to the married couple, who frequented the bar at least a few times a week. And they were the only patrons in the small room, situated away from the main viewing area where the volume was on full blast. So they were surprised when the staff curtly shot down their request without any explanation.
The Ellingwoods continued watching the nail-biting game with subtitles, but as it got more and more exciting, customers began spilling over to their side of the bar. Before long, the small room was packed.
'We were all cheering,' says Janie. 'We all gave each other high-fives.'
Still, the staff refused to turn up the volume.
The experience left the Ellingwoods, who are diehard fans of the L.A. Sparks and season-ticket holders for Angel City Football Club, wondering why there weren't any bars in Los Angeles where they could comfortably watch women's sports without feeling ostracized. So they decided to create their own.
After months of searching for a location, the wife-and-wife duo took over another sports bar in Silver Lake — formerly known as Trophy Wife — and turned it into Untamed Spirits, the first women's sports bar in the city of L.A.
Opened in early June to coincide with Pride Month, Untamed Spirits joins a short list of bars in the U.S. dedicated to women's sports, including Portland's Sports Bra, which is expanding to four new cities including Las Vegas and Boston; Rough & Tumble in Seattle; Minnesota's A Bar of Their Own; and Rikki's in San Francisco. Long Beach's Watch Me! Sports Bar, which opened its doors last July, was the first in California.
Stephanie, 37, who played professional golf for a few years, felt that L.A. needed something like this. 'Something that's a little bit classier, that isn't sticky when you put your arms on the bar,' she describes.
'For once, I want to watch a game at the bar with sound on instead of some random spot in the corner,' Janie, 34, adds.
On a recent Tuesday night, Janie was behind the counter pouring drinks, including their signature Angel City pink punch, for patrons sitting at the bar, which was adorned with rainbow flags and an Angel City Football Club flag. Meanwhile, Stephanie was floating around the space, checking on customers. The couple, who met while playing volleyball together at La Quinta High School, also run a made-to-order croissant bakery based in Orange County and remodel and manage residential properties throughout Southern California.
The bar is sleek and modern — a neon pink sign reads 'Welcome to the Untamed Era,' and whimsical black and white illustrations cover a few of the walls. Menstrual products are displayed on the bathroom counter. The spacious patio is filled with plants and a sign that says 'Watch Women's Sports Here.' (There's a TV in nearly every corner, so there's no bad seat.) Although Untamed Spirits specializes in women's sports of all kinds — even the more niche ones like kayaking, Janie says — the bar also plays men's sports.
Sitting at a table with a date and two friends, Marina Sobreviñas, 31, says she's found that queer bars like Hi Tops in Los Feliz are more likely to play women's sports, but she felt that 'it's about time' there is a spot dedicated to them. She recalls her experience trying to watch the FIFA Women's World Cup at a bar.
'There was like, one World Cup TV out of the 10 TVs they had going, and it was sort of fascinating,' she says. 'Like, 'Am I'm the only one wearing a jersey today? OK, no problem.''
Sobreviñas says that women's sports are just as exciting as men's sports.
Lisa Marie Ornelas, 30, agrees. 'Women [athletes], in a way, have a little bit more to prove,' she says.
Untamed Spirits arrives in L.A. at a time when interest in women's sports is expanding at a 'meteoric pace' across the globe, according to Nielsen. The 2024 NCAA women's basketball tournament averaged nearly 19 million viewers (with a peak of 24 million viewers for the final game between Iowa and South Carolina), an 89% bump from the previous year. The WNBA draft audience jumped 511%, and overall interest in the league grew 29% between 2023 and 2024. The National Women's Soccer League saw a 17% boost in interest between 2023 and 2024. With the heightened interest, ad spending also increased: In 2024, TV advertisers spent $244 million on women's sports, a year-over-year increase of 139%, according to TV marketing firm EDO.
'Women in general have been playing great sports for a long time,' says Stephanie. 'I just think the right people who have the ability to put them in the spotlight are finally noticing.'
More women's sports bars are expected to open throughout the country. Jax Diener, who opened Watch Me! Sports Bar in Long Beach with her wife about a year ago, recalls when women's sports weren't aired on TV at all. She went to the first WNBA game at the Forum in 1997.
'We used to come home after those games that were so exciting and turn on the sports that night to see the replays, and they weren't even mentioned,' says Diener. 'It was as if the league didn't even exist.'
Diener says she was excited when she heard about another women's sports bar opening in Southern California. 'To me, it was really important for them to know that we're in this together,' she says, adding that she has a text thread with other women's sports bar owners where they share advice. 'This is not a competition. This is women supporting women.'
Untamed Spirits recently became an official bar partner of the Angel City Football Club, which has a majority female-led ownership group that includes Natalie Portman, Abby Wambach and America Ferrera. The Ellingwoods will host their first watch party on Sept. 7 when the ACFC takes on Gotham FC.
Janie and Stephanie, who've been at the bar every day since it opened, say they are excited to eventually distill their own spirits, host more events and watch parties in the space and foster community among women's sports lovers.
'Some people might call it a trend, but it's not a trend,' Janie says. 'I believe it's a movement.'
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