At Women’s Sports Bars, the Basketball Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg

Not your average sports bar

Women’s sports bars—which are often framed by proprietors as a passion project as much as a commercial enterprise—neatly meet that growing demand. Last March, an NBC News analysis found that the number of women’s sports bars in the US was on track to quadruple by the end of the year, increasing from six to around 24 across 16 US states. Several women’s sports bars have opened in New York City alone in recent months, including Athena Keke’s and Blazers in Brooklyn—and, of course, Wilka’s, which is located in Lower Manhattan and first threw open its doors in August.

On a Friday evening in late March, Wika’s was filled with people—mostly women, but some men and nonbinary individuals too—fixated on a row of TVs along the wall broadcasting the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 faceoff between the University of Minnesota’s Golden Gophers and the UCLA Bruins. Most were clustered around the center of the bar for the best possible view. “Everyone watches women’s sports,” the shirt of a passing server proclaimed.

While Wilka’s looks and functions like your average sports bar in many respects (minus the sticky floors, persistent odor, and cramped atmosphere—it’s refreshingly spacious!), the women’s-sports-centric decor choices are probably the most obvious feature setting it apart: framed New York Liberty jerseys in the franchise’s iconic black, white, and seafoam green colors; a Liberty-branded candle on a bookshelf; and bobblehead dolls of hockey player Micah Zandee-Hart and basketball legend Lauren Jackson stationed like sentries in front of colorful spines on that same bookshelf. Two titles written by WNBA legends immediately jump out: “The Can-Do Mindset: How to Cultivate Resilience, Follow Your Heart, and Fight for Your Passions” by retired two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker and “Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You” by the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson.

In the bathroom, there were stickers plastered on the wall promoting not only the Liberty, but also the New York Sirens, a women’s hockey team; Gotham FC, a New York-area women’s soccer team; and Unrivaled, a Miami-based women’s basketball league that boasts Reese and Bueckers on its 2026 roster. “Love who you want and watch women’s sports,” another sticker read.

McKenna was one of the bartenders working during the NCAA tournament that night, frantically mixing drinks to keep up with the demand. With Wilka’s, “we’re proving and showing every day that women’s sports matters, even from an economic standpoint,” she said. And the economics matter more than ever, especially for the athletes. Women’s basketball players—the most successful female athletes in team sports—command a mere fraction of what their male counterparts make, a disparity that Reese, Clark, Bueckers, and other players have all spoken out about. Change may be slow, but it’s hard to deny that the energy around women’s sports “is just so good,” one customer, Sam Hankins, 43, an Upper Manhattan resident who uses they/them pronouns, said. “How can you not be into it?”