Looking for a place to watch women’s sports in Philly? The Stoop Pigeon is opening in June at the corner of Broad and Pine Streets and will be a one-stop shop to watch all types of women’s sports and support its growing local scene.
After almost two years of putting women’s sports on the TVs of bars around the city and advocating for more professional women’s sports teams, Watch Party PHL announced Thursday that it plans to open a multipurpose venue at 337-41 S. Broad Street this June, just in time for the FIFA World Cup.
Watch Party founder Jen Leary described the location as “iconic.”
“You walk out the door, you look to the right, it’s City Hall, you look to the left, it’s the Super Bowl parade route. You can’t get much better than that,” she said.
The Stoop Pigeon was founded by Leary and partners Lori Albright, Fawn McGee and Megan DiTolla. The group has rented the space, used to be a Starbucks and a sushi restaurant with a dividing wall between them, on a five-year lease. By last November when they announced the Stoop Pigeon brand, they had brought in over $100,000 in funding for the hub, with more than $70,000 of that coming from a Kickstarter campaign.
The over 2,500 square-foot space will serve as a cafe, sports bar, kitchen, co-working space and podcasting area — all centered around the local women’s sports community. As with Watch Party PHL’s events before, the full variety of women’s sports going on around the world will be on the screens, volume up. The space aims to be open for sports in all time zones and the viewing centerpiece will be a 123-inch display.
Philly got its first-ever women’s sports bar, Marsha’s, on South Street, back in September. Aside from showing live sports and bar service, the Stoop Pigeon will have a hub that serves as a cafe, co-working and event space. Food will be available from a ventless kitchen, with brunch services on Saturdays and Sundays. A private podcast booth will be onsite.
“We were very intentional about not calling in a bar, because we don’t want to limit who comes in,” she said. “Making it family-friendly so people can bring their kids to watch games or to see a live panel like something similar to what we did last night with Mo’Ne Davis. We want kids to be able to experience those things.”
Leary said that Stoop Pigeon is also partnering with the local businesses that supported their growth and viewing parties over the past two-and-a-half years, including Rival Bros Coffee Bar, Sterling Pig Brewery and The Philadelphia Sisters.
Leary said the next steps to get it ready will involve a “day one, day two buildout.” Day one involves putting together everything needed to be ready by the first or second week of June. Day two will be about adding to the enhanced space, including applying for permits for the outdoor seating space and collaborating with Mural Arts Philadelphia on art highlighting the history of women’s sports in Philly.
The aim is to have the Stoop Pigeon open by the June 11 start of the World Cup in Philly and 15 other cities in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. That and other men’s sports will also occasionally be on, Leary said.
“While we are primarily a women’s sports hub, we’re going to be showing the Eagles, we’re going to be showing FIFA games,” she said. “We’re ride or die Philly, So anything that’s happening in Philly that we can support, we’re going to do that.”
A Philly-native, Leary said that signing a five-year lease at Broad and Pine was pretty cool, but also pretty terrifying from a business perspective. What’s made it less scary has been seeing the rapid growth and support of women’s sports in the city, including Unrivaled Basketball’s record breaking attendance at the Xfinity Mobile Arena and the news that Philly will get a WNBA franchise in 2030.
“Women’s sports is growing by the day,” Leary said. “And so you know there’s definitely no shortage of sports that we’re going to be watching on these televisions and women’s sports events that we’re going to be able to throw.”
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