Australia’s first women’s only sports bar to open on Oxford Street

When The Ladies League opens on Oxford Street in August, it will become Australia’s first women’s only sports bar.

The pioneering venue will exclusively play women’s games across six televisions and one big screen, tapping into a fan base which has steadily grown since the Matilda’s dominated the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023.

“There’s a huge demand for … a place where people can gather and enjoy women’s sports together,” says Rose Valente, who founded The Ladies League (TLL ) as a women-led digital sports publication and online community in 2017.

“There’s no real place to do that in Australia, we’ve always come second to mens’ sports.”

Despite the exceptional viewership of the Women’s World Cup (WWC) – the Matilda’s semi-final against England became the most-watched TV program in two decades – it remains difficult to be a women’s sports fan in Sydney.

Television coverage of women’s sports remains at around 12 per cent of total sports coverage on any given day in Australia, and it’s tough to find venues with consistent live-screenings of women’s football, soccer, tennis and cricket matches.

TLL foundation member Sarah Widera, who worked on the promotional team for the WWC, says it’s past time for women’s sport to have a spiritual home.

“I don’t want to say women’s football is up and coming any more because it’s here and now, it’s having its moment,” Widera says.

TLL follows the massive success of women’s sports bars opening across the US, like The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon. Within eight months of its opening the country’s first women’s sports bar in 2023, Sports Bra owner Jenny Nguyen reported taking nearly $1 million in revenue.

The venue on Oxford Street is a two-storey, 80-seat venue, with a bar downstairs and a viewing lounge upstairs (“Where serious fans can get loud and yell at the TV,” Valente says). Women’s sports will be played five nights a week, and entry is free.

The kitchen, led by head chef Rojit Maharjan (ex-Sunday Potts Point), will focus on snackable and shareable dishes like nachos, dumplings and charcuterie. On big game nights, the kitchen will remain open until 11pm.

The bar will feature two beer taps from Bathurst-based Reckless Brewing Co, the largest female-led-and-run brewery in Australia, alongside a selection of popular cocktails, such as espresso martinis.

Valente says she’s eager to contribute to the rejuvenation of Darlinghurst by opening a proudly queer-friendly venue, open to all genders: “Oxford street is a very important street, and the whole area is on the rise, it’s coming back.”

For years Oxford Street has been hit hard by a major redevelopmentthat has turned almost three blocks into a construction site.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore says the City of Sydney updated the planning controls for Oxford Street in 2022 to unlock more development potential and encourage investment in the area as a 24-hour cultural and creative precinct.

“When we consulted with the community to develop the LGBTIQA+ Place Strategy, one of the things we heard was that Oxford Street needed more diverse venues, in particular, places for female identifying members of the community,” Moore says.