For more about how to help Minnesotans resist ICE’s occupation, visit the Stand With Minnesota website for resources and calls to action.
As ICE descends on cities nationwide, abducting people from the streets, their jobs, and their homes, Americans are mobilizing to resist. Ground zero for this resistance is ICE-occupied Minneapolis, where they have had at least two citizens murdered by the state in the last two weeks.
While Minnesotans defend their state from a militarized invasion for the second time in six years, the sports world moves forward, unsure what their role is in this moment. Some teams, like the PWHL’s Minnesota Frost and the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, have held moments of silence for Renee Nicole Good and/or Alex Pretti, both of whom have been murdered by ICE in recent weeks simply for bearing witness to the agency’s brutality (neither team mentioned ICE directly or indicated any action to be taken). Others have been less sure what route to take, with the Minnesota Wild declining to cancel their game against the Panthers just hours after Pretti was shot, and the Timberwolves playing a game just 10 minutes away from where Pretti was murdered after only a single 24-hour postponement (Timberwolves and Lynx owner Alex Rodriguez said, simply, “There’s a lot of traffic”).
One portion of the women’s sports world that is completely clear-eyed about the role they serve in this moment is relatively new to the community. Women’s sports bars, which have seen a surge of openings and success over the last few years, are stepping up to meet this moment. At the forefront of this resistance is Jillian Hiscock, the owner of Minneapolis’ A Bar of Their Own. As the Twin Cities remain under siege and occupied, ABOTO is not only a safe place to land for their community, but is writing a blueprint for other women’s sports bars across the country to follow if and when ICE comes to their cities.
On the bar’s social media accounts, Hiscock provides daily updates on how the community on-the-ground in Minnesota is feeling, how they are doing, and what they need. She shares information about mutual aid campaigns and food drives, directs people to resources, and hands out whistles. She’s hosted groups who gathered to knit blankets, scarfs, and hats for the folks out in the streets. And when a self-identified “conservative women’s sports fan” left a comment criticizing the political stance ABOTO had taken, Hiscock let her know where she could take her business (elsewhere).
“Women’s sports have always been inherently political in terms of the fact that we had to have legislation to determine that we could participate in sports,” Hiscock tells Out of Your League. “I don't really feel like we have a choice of being political or not. We exist, and by existing, we are a political entity. We have become really proud of the stances that we have felt comfortable taking. We know that it's how we need to operate in order to stay true to ourselves and to the customers that we've built this community with.”
As Hiscock points out, there are plenty of facets of women’s sports that are political whether people want to realize it or not—like supporting the campaign for WNBA players to be paid fairly in their ongoing CBA negotiations, or standing up for the rights of trans athletes to play sports.
And Kaitlyn Laabs, director of Untapped, a forthcoming documentary about the women’s sports bar movement, agrees. “These bars are gathering places that uplift and celebrate communities that have long been underserved and undervalued,” Laabs tells Out of Your League. “Sport becomes the shared language—bringing people together and fueling social change, just as it has throughout history.”
On Threads, Hiscock used her ABOTO account to ask Unrivaled to postpone their merch drop by a day so as not to interfere with the general strike to support Minnesota (she did not get a response from the league, nor did OOYL when requesting comment. However, several Unrivaled players, including Breanna Stewart and Natasha Cloud have expressed support for the ongoing protests).
That revolutionary spirit is evident in the stands of women’s sports events, as well. After fans at a Frost game had anti-ICE signs confiscated following the murder of Good, “ICE out now!” chants erupted at the following game when the arena flashed a code of conduct warning. At that same game, which occurred after Pretti’s murder, the Frost hosted a food drive “to help support neighbors across Minnesota,” nodding to the current crisis without quite naming it. Minnesota Lynx coaches Cheryl Reeve and Rebekah Brunson have been sharing photos from their attendance at the anti-ICE protests across the city.
Not all leagues are as supportive of empowering players to make political statements. On the most recent episode of The End of Sport podcast, Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva said that an unnamed PWHL player wanted to go on the record about current events for their piece in The Guardian about athletes speaking out against fascism, but was denied approval from the league to do so. This is perhaps complicated by the fact that Mark Walter, who owns the PWHL, also helps fund ICE through several of his companies.
ABOTO isn’t the only women’s sports bar who is stepping in to rally their community. Watch Me! Sports Bar in Long Beach, California, is donating portion of proceeds from all beer buckets and signature drinks through Feb 6 to LA County and Minneapolis legal and mutual aid organizations. "What I have seen since the election is that the tone has changed,” Jax Diener, owner of Watch Me! Sports Bar, tells Out of Your League. “Women's sports bars have become more overtly political and the stakes are too high to sit these causes out. What began as a space to watch women's sports has grown into a place to advance women's issues and empower all people."
Title 9 Sports Grill in Phoenix and Untamed Spirits in Los Angeles have both announced that they will be closed on Friday, January 30th, for the national shutdown to demand the government stop funding ICE.
“This is about human rights and this is about people being afraid to walk on the streets and out of nowhere, you could be snatched,” Janie Trinh and Stephanie Ellingwood, Untamed Spirits owners said in a statement to Out of Your League. “As much as we are a safe space at the bar, this is inside the bar. People are outside. People are going to work. We want people to feel safe. There’s only so much we can do, but we want to be there to support.”
The 99ers Sports Bar in Denver is speaking out against ICE and citing solidarity with ABOTO in Minneapolis, writing on Instagram that “bars are community spaces. This is us showing up for ours.” Also in Denver, Lady Justice Brewing is hosting a sign-making station to send to ABOTO to show their support. Last fall, when ICE was active in Chicago, Babe’s Sports Bar was handing out whistles to their patrons as part of the neighborhood ICE mobilization and patrols.
“We've seen these bars successfully galvanize the community around trans rights and queer legislation; campaign for women, non-binary and candidates of color; and support immigrant communities long before the most recent heinous acts of violence,” Laabs says. “They are more than a place to watch sports—they give patrons a way to reclaim space and redefine a path moving forward.”
One thing that Hiscock hopes people can take from how ABOTO is showing up in the Twin Cities is the motivation to proactively get organized in their own cities. “Start preparing for what this might look like when it comes to your community, because it's coming to your community,” she says. “The more that people can do in the beginning to prepare for this and start getting to know their neighbors, the less you have to do it in moments of crisis.”
For more about how to help, go to the Stand With Minnesota website.
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