Women’s Sports Fans Celebrate March Madness in ‘Freaking Awesome’ Sports Bar Made for Them
“There’s something really powerful about creating space to just celebrate women’s sports,” says owner Jenny Nguyen
Dorothy Wang
Jenny Nguyen opens the Sports BraIn 2018, Jenny Nguyen and a group of friends went to a sports bar to watch the NCAA Women’s Championship game between Notre Dame and Mississippi State.
“Out of 32 TVs, none of them had the game on,” recalls Nguyen, 44. When the group asked a staff member to change the channel, they “stuck us in the corner of the bar,” she says.
“The game ended up being one of the best games we'd ever seen. It was a comeback from behind, a really dramatic last second three-pointer to win it. And I remember all of us just losing our minds. We were just so excited," she shares. "We were hugging in the parking lot saying goodbye and I told my friend, 'That's the best game I've ever seen.' And she was just like, 'It would've been amazing if the sound had been on.' "
Nguyen hadn't even noticed the TV was muted, she realized.
Dorothy Wang
Jenny Nguyen of the Sports Bra"I'd become so accustomed to watching women's sports as a second-class citizen," she says. “Out of frustration, I blurted out, 'The only way we're ever going to watch a women's sports game in its full glory is if we had our own place.' "
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The next day, the name 'The Sports Bra' popped into her head.
“You take Sports Bar, and all you do is switch those two letters, but it's those tiny changes that make all the difference,” she says.
She and her friends started fantasizing about what they would have at their dream sports bar: clean bathrooms, gymnastics on TV, hooks for their purses.
When Nguyen, a former executive chef, wrote a business proposal to turn her dream bar into reality, traditional lenders turned her down for a small business loan.
So on Valentine’s Day 2022, she launched a Kickstarter, hoping to raise $49,000. She raised more than $105,000 in days.
“I opened my email, and there were 600 emails in there from people all around the world talking about what this means to them. In that moment, I was like, I think maybe we're onto something."
On April 1, 2022, The Sports Bra officially opened, and the women's sports bar was successful from the start.
Dorothy Wang
Jenny Nguyen of the Sports Bra“The first eight months that we were open, we made just under $1 million in revenue,” Nguyen says. "It’s been awesome."
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They have a scratch kitchen, and they try to purchase from local, woman-owned businesses. They have 21 taps — and everything on tap is either woman-owned, or made with a woman in the brew house.
Since Nguyen's business launched, more women’s sports bars have opened around the U.S., including Seattle's Rough & Tumble, Long Beach, California's Watch Me!, Minneapolis' A Bar of Their Own and The 99ers, opening this summer in Denver.
“It's great when traditional sports bars or other sports bars play both men's and women's sports, but I think there's something really powerful about creating space to just celebrate women's sports,” she says.
Nguyen hopes to expand her own business, too.
“Girls and women's athletics have been freaking awesome for decades,” she adds. “It's just that nobody was watching.”
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