{"id":415,"date":"2025-10-13T04:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/415\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T04:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:01:14","slug":"uswnt-legends-julie-foudy-abby-wambach-create-community-for-womens-sports-at-long-beach-bar-press-telegram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/415\/","title":{"rendered":"USWNT legends Julie Foudy, Abby Wambach create community for women\u2019s sports at Long Beach bar \u2013 Press Telegram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two titans of women\u2019s soccer, Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach, recently made a trip to Long Beach \u2014 to celebrate the launch of their new podcast, which will also feature frequent appearances from another hometown legend \u2014 at a recently opened, one-of-a-kind local sports bar.<\/p>\n

The pair visited Watch Me! Sports Bar, located on Pacific Coast Highway across the street from the 2nd & PCH shopping center, on Friday, Oct. 11. The sports bar celebrated its grand opening<\/a> \u2014 and the start of a new kind of sports bar \u2014 in July.<\/p>\n

Watch Me! is the first bar in California that\u2019s focused specifically on showing, highlighting and celebrating women\u2019s sports. Its co-owners, Jackie Diener and Megan Eddy \u2014 who go by \u201cJax\u201d and \u201cEmme\u201d \u2014 said previously their goal is to \u201ccelebrate achievements by women who continuously break barriers in the sports world and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

That guiding tenet made Watch Me! a perfect choice for Friday\u2019s event with Foudy and Wambach, whose new podcast \u201cWelcome to the Party,\u201d has a similar goal.<\/p>\n

The show, which launched in September, features interviews with other iconic leaders in women\u2019s sports. Their first episode, published on Thursday, Sept. 4, had retired track and field star Allyson Felix on as a guest. Felix, a six-time Olympic gold medal winner, is the most decorated track and field athlete \u2014 woman or man \u2014 in Olympic history, having earned 11 medals from five Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to be a part of women\u2019s sports, and this is the perfect place, you know \u2014 the first women\u2019s sports bar in California to open,\u201d Wambach said in a Friday interview. \u201cAnd now, you\u2019re seeing all these women\u2019s sports bars all over the country opening. It\u2019s my goal and dream to get to every single one of them and do something like this there, because (it would be so) exciting to tap into (what) all the smaller regional communities that are excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Abby<\/p>\n

Abby Wambach takes questions while promoting the new podcast, \u201cWelcome to the Party,\u201d at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From right, Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach take questions while promoting their new podcast, \u201cWelcome to the Party,\u201d at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Lindsay and Caitlin Lowe attend a Q&A with women\u2019s soccer legends Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy take questions while promoting their new podcast, \u201cWelcome to the Party,\u201d at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy take questions while promoting their new podcast, \u201cWelcome to the Party,\u201d at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Erica<\/p>\n

Erica Curry asks a question during a Q&A with women\u2019s soccer legends Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From right, Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach take questions while promoting their new podcast, \u201cWelcome to the Party,\u201d at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 7<\/p>\n

Abby Wambach takes questions while promoting the new podcast, \u201cWelcome to the Party,\u201d at the Watch Me Sports Bar in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

And the excitement at Watch Me! was palpable Friday afternoon, with around a hundred fans gathering in the courtyard outside the bar to hear Wambach and Foudy speak about their new podcast and get the crowd ready to watch game four of the WNBA finals between the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury. The Aces defeated the Mercury 97-86 to complete a four-game sweep to win the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel when we\u2019re with y\u2019all, that there\u2019s hope and there\u2019s light and there\u2019s inclusion, and there\u2019s all these good things in the world that we should be shouting at the rooftops about,\u201d Foudy said during the Q&A, \u201cand we find our best selves when we\u2019re around people who love women\u2019s sports. And so we wanted to talk about it more and share that with you all \u2014 the party people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Podcast guests, so far, have included tennis icon and recent U.S. Open winner Aryna Sabalenka, basketball star Breanna Stewart, fellow USWNT legend Alex Morgan, WNBA titan Sue Bird, NBC sports broadcaster Rebecca Lowe, and more.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one more thing about \u201cWelcome to the Party\u201d that\u2019s sure to delight Long Beach residents: It\u2019ll regularly feature appearances from Billie Jean King, Long Beach\u2019s tennis icon and staunch advocate for gender equality.<\/p>\n

King,\u00a0a graduate of Poly High School whose roots in Long Beach run deep, fell in love with tennis at 11,\u00a0when she bought her first racket\u00a0and told her mother she was going to become the No. 1 tennis player in the world.<\/p>\n

She lived up to that expectation, and throughout her 81 years, she has also been a pioneer in the women\u2019s rights movement, an LGBTQ+ champion and a leading figure in the fight for pay equity for women.<\/p>\n

Besides her work in sports and advocacy, King is also a lover of books and her hometown city\u2019s public libraries \u2014 making her a perfect namesake for Long Beach\u2019s Billie Jean King Main Library in downtown,\u00a0which was named in the legend\u2019s honor in 2019.<\/p>\n

Foudy and Wambach, similarly, are no strangers to the sports history books \u2014 each with remarkably storied careers of their own. Foudy, a two-time FIFA World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, retired from the U.S. Women\u2019s National Team in 2024 with 274 international caps under her belt.<\/p>\n

In 1997, she was the first American and first woman to get the FIFA Fair Play Award, which celebrates \u201cexemplary fair play behavior, either on or off the pitch in relation to an official football match, including matches in amateur leagues,\u201d according to the organization\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Notably, Foudy was a key member of the USWNT\u2019s legendary 99ers squad<\/a> \u2014 which won the 1999 World Cup against China in front of more than 90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.<\/p>\n

The final match for that World Cup was, and still is, regarded as one of the most important and influential games in U.S. women\u2019s soccer history \u2014 capturing the attention of millions, helping to legitimize professional women\u2019s sports and inspiring generations of young women to pursue their athletic talents seriously.<\/p>\n

The momentum from that World Cup win, according to ESPN<\/a>, helped USWNT players establish the first professional women\u2019s soccer league in the U.S., negotiate their first collective bargaining agreement and, most importantly, carved out a real and tangible path for other women with dreams of becoming professional players.<\/p>\n

Those strides for women\u2019s soccer bolstered by the 99ers squad and their incredible World Cup victory led to the establishment of the Women\u2019s United Soccer Association in 2001. Though that endeavor only lasted a few years, it laid crucial groundwork for professional women\u2019s soccer leagues in the U.S. \u2014 and without it, it\u2019s unlikely that the now successful National Women\u2019s Soccer League would exist.<\/p>\n

Foudy, since her retirement, has remained active in the women\u2019s soccer world. She\u2019s an advocate for women\u2019s equality in sports, she\u2019s been inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame, written books, appeared in documentaries, launched a sports leadership academy, and recently ended her two-decade career<\/a> as a sports broadcaster and soccer analyst with ESPN.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the things she had in common with King \u2014 who Foudy lovingly refers to as \u201cThe Kinger\u201d \u2014 when they first met at a women\u2019s sports roundtable back in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\u201cBillie was telling her story about women\u2019s tennis breaking away from men\u2019s tennis and forming their own tour, and how hard that was. I\u2019d been on the national team for, like, seven, eight years, and we were having similar issues,\u201d Foudy said in an interview. \u201cAnd so I said to her, Billie, all your issues are our issues \u2014 what should we do? We\u2019re not getting any movement from the U.S. Soccer Federation. And she was like, \u2018Foudy \u2014 what are you doing about it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

King, who was the catalyst for the women\u2019s sports equal pay movement, held other leaders in women\u2019s sports accountable, Foudy said, making sure that their action and advocacy was aligned, active and consistent throughout the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were fighting for equitable pay back in the day, and more resources, more marketing, more support and more staffing and all those things, but (Billie) was the one who was always like, let\u2019s go. Here\u2019s where we are. This is what we need to do,\u201d Foudy said. \u201cShe\u2019s the thread that runs through all women\u2019s sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wambach\u2019s USWNT career, both on and off the pitch, was equally influential \u2014 and she and Foudy even played together on the national team for a few years at the start of her career. Wambach earned her first cap for the USWNT in 2001, kicking off a yearslong career that she\u2019d eventually leave as the USWNT\u2019s highest goal scorer of all-time (a record she still holds to this day), with one FIFA World Cup win and two Olympic gold medals with the USWNT.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and won the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award six times throughout her career. FIFA named her World Player of the Year in 2012, making her the first woman athlete to receive the honor in 10 years.<\/p>\n

Besides her international career, Wambach played in every iteration of the professional women\u2019s soccer leagues \u2014 including the Women\u2019s United Soccer Association, then later the Women\u2019s Professional Soccer and, finally, in the NSWL with the Western New York Flash.<\/p>\n

Wambach \u2014 like King and Foudy \u2014 has been a staunch advocate for women\u2019s sports throughout her life. She spoke out against unfair and unequal treatment of women athletes, participating in legal action against FIFA for mandating artificial turf fields<\/a> during the 2015 World Cup, for example. And later in her career, she joined the fight for pay equity in women\u2019s soccer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Foudy\u2019s conversation about equal pay advocacy in the \u201990s, she and the USWNT engaged in a contract dispute with the U.S. Soccer Federation. In fact, Foudy and the team were set to sign a contract the very next day \u2014 but after her talk with King, she was able to persuade her team to hold out for something better.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next day, we were signing contracts \u2014 and I was like, Billie Jean King told me, and then we didn\u2019t sign the contract,\u201d Foudy said, \u201cand that was the first, like, major blow up.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, the Federation folded, and the USWNT succeeded in securing a better,<\/a> more equitable contract for their players. Decades later, after unending effort by the women who make the sport what it is, the USWNT finally achieved pay equity for its players through a landmark legal win against the U.S. Soccer Federation in 2022<\/a> \u2014 which included $24 million in back pay for the players and a commitment from the organization to pay men and women players equally moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the stories they told me when I first got on the national team. So people wonder why (there\u2019s) so much love and heart and passion for women\u2019s soccer for the national team, and it\u2019s because, how could I not?\u201d Wambach said. \u201cI got to play after these legends played \u2014 and they got to play after Billie played. We just keep helping each other, generation after generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, years out from their professional soccer careers, Foudy and Wambach are continuing their lifelong efforts to bolster gender equality in sports with their \u201cWelcome to the Party\u201d podcast \u2014 and by supporting the local bars\u2019 efforts to do the same.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how, the pair hopes, women will continue to get the treatment, community and respect they deserve \u2014 both on and off the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two titans of women\u2019s soccer, Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach, recently made a trip to Long Beach \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,767,23,131,133,132,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-local-business","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-long-beach","12":"tag-long-beach-headlines","13":"tag-long-beach-news","14":"tag-los-angeles-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}