In the bustling centre of Oxford Street in Sydney, a new sports bar designed specifically for women has launched. Its founder and owner, Rose Valente, has been on a long, spiritual journey. As a life-long soccer fan, she was tired of feeling like she was in someone else’s house whenever she and her friends gathered at a local pub to watch sports.
For years, she has wanted to open a bar herself — a place designed for women for them to come together and enjoy watching women’s sports.
“I thought it would be sick,” Valente said. “I just thought it a really cool thing to do, and I thought it was needed as well.”
The desire for a safe space
For her, the demand for a women’s sports bar was high.
“There’s nowhere really that you can gather as a group of women, or for people who support women’s sport,” she said. “When you walk into a pub, it’s nearly impossible to have a women’s sport game on.
When she was thinking about The Ladies League Bar, which officially opens this Friday, she imagined it to be a safe space for women, with positive energy and where women would not be subjected to the male gaze.
“I feel like as a woman, when you go into a sports bar sometimes, you are kind of looked at,” she said. “You’re not made to feel comfortable. As a woman patron, you do feel like you’re in somebody else’s house. The vibe is just off.”
Finding a suitable location for the bar was important. Valente wanted a central location; walking distance to SCG and Allianz Stadium so that fans could trickle out of the games and into the bar.
Oxford Street was also very important for Valente, as she wanted to offer a space for the LGBTQI+ community.
“I know what my customers are going to be,” she said. “I know it’s gonna be a very queer — that’s really gonna be a huge portion.”
“Queer people will be a huge portion of the customer base. Women’s sport is sort of intertwined with a queer community, and a lot of players and supporters are queer. We’re kind of going with the philosophy of — we’re for everyone.”
“There aren’t many places for lesbians to go in Sydney,” Valente said. “I know that a lot of lesbians will just come here because they’ll have somewhere to go. Even though it’s about sports, they still can hang out here.”
“Are men allowed too?” I asked.
“Men, women, you don’t have to identify as anyone — this is literally just a place where anyone can watch women’s sport. Our sole purpose is to support women’s sport. We want to help support women’s sport, and we want to help roll it.”
At her bar, Valente wants patrons to discover their next favourite team.
“It’s helping build women’s sports. That’s how I see it.”
When you walk inside, the space is cozy and warm.
Donated items scatter the lounge area and bar — flower arrangements that stretch like columns around the bar, pink LED lights; the walls are lined in autographed jerseys from the Australian cricket, Sydney Swans and Angel City.
Most of the items have been donated, either by fans, or sports stars.
“We keep getting sent things,” Valente beams. “The women’s sport community cares so much.”
Underneath a huge screen mounted to the end wall is a bench labeled “Alex Chidiac bench.”
The 25-year old Matildas midfielder sent us jerseys from both her current teams.
Valente has a decade’s worth of experience in hospitality —which helps, now that she’s discovered the challenges of being a site manager at her new bar.
“In the past eight years, I’ve been doing very administrative jobs, office jobs, different kinds, and I think that’s where I learned my business skills,” she explained. “I had management down-packed, and then I learned a lot more about behind the scenes and all the little nitty gritty of a business.”
From blog to a bar
Turning a social media brand into a bar was not easy, but it helped that Valente had a large existing fanbase.
When she began the Ladies League in 2017, it was simply a place for her to write what she wanted to write about women’s sport.
Valente wasn’t enjoying the way female journalists and commentators were often marginalised during matches.
“When you watch the men’s game, and watch the panel, and it’s different now, but at the time, it would be three men on the panel, and then you’d have either Mel McLaughlin or Tara Rushton on the sidelines,” she explained. “The women would just have a few minutes of air time, and they were just there to assist.”
“I knew there were some women who were fantastic at what they do, capable of having those [panel] positions.”
Valente wanted to create a place where she and her friends could publish their thoughts and commentary.
“It had nothing to do with money,” she continued. “It was very blog style. It was like fan media. Our Twitter page was fun, so we had a lot of fun, but I would do really quirky headlines.”
Soon, Valente and her team of freelance, unpaid writers were being asked to appear on major news networks. Their commentary was being taken seriously.
Since then, several contributors to the original site have gone on to work for large media outlets, doing what they did at the Ladies League — videographers, journalists, social media managers.
“We were a group of people who all just came together and worked on our passion,” Valente said. “We made it as our hobby, it was our passion. So the content we would put out was just really good.”
“There was a hunger for a female perspective.”
The bar is a physical manifestation of the original blog — and proof that all the naysayers were wrong.
“People told me this is a gamble, this is risky, everyone considered me high risk. But I have so much faith in this.”
“The women’s sport community is so strong, it’s so wholesome, it’s so supportive.”
The Ladies League Bar is located at 245 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, and is open on Friday 30 August.