In 2018, Jenny Nguyen wanted to watch the NCAA women’s championship basketball game with friends at a bar, and had to plead with a bartender to swap the men’s game on a small, no-sound television for it. Frustrated with this recurring experience, she came up with a solution: she opened her own bar.
The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon plays exclusively women’s sports on TV, and while Nguyen believed her idea was important - she admittedly didn’t think it would catch on. She anticipated it would only stay open for a few months.
Much to her surprise and delight, she was proven wrong: the bar just celebrated its one-year anniversary. And that’s not all: in the 8 months it was open in 2022, it brought in nearly $1 million, making it profitable within a year.
“It turns out, it’s pretty universal - that feeling of being a women’s sports fan and going into a public place, like a sports bar, and having a difficult time finding a place to show a [women’s] game, especially when there are other men’s sports playing,” Nguyen says.
Nguyen, her team, and the customers that frequent The Sports Bra are helping elevate women’s sports to the level of access they more than deserve. No doubt there will be more bars like it popping up around the country!