By Tai Owen ’24
Staff Writer
The Sports Bra opened its doors on April 1, 2022, the 50th anniversary year of Title IX. Located in Portland, Oregon, the bar challenges tradition with its dedication to solely streaming and supporting women’s sports. According to Oregon Live, founder and Portland native Jenny Nguyen believes the Sports Bra might be the first bar in the world to be focused only on women’s sports.
Oregon Live reported that Nguyen had the idea for The Sports Bra after watching a women’s basketball championship game on a tiny TV with no sound in a sports bar.
“It was Notre Dame against Mississippi State [in the 2018 NCAA women’s finals]. And Notre Dame was down by like 23 or something, came back from behind, and Arike hit a last-second three-pointer. And we just lost it in this bar. It was incredible,” Nguyen said in an interview with Shireen Ahmed for the podcast Burn It All Down.
According to the bar’s Instagram page, Nguyen listed The Sports Bra as a Kickstarter project on Feb. 14, 2022 after being denied funding from several financial institutions and rejected for two types of small business. Ultimately, the Kickstarter generated $105,135 in donations from 635 people, exceeding the $48,000 that Nguyen calculated needing.
According to the Kickstarter, Nguyen was an avid basketball player growing up and saw her calling for uplifting women’s sports.
According to The Sports Bra’s website, to get the name of the bar, Nguyen “ took your regular sports bar, switched around the two letters and got The Sports Bra.”
After searching for locations that would serve the community well, and decorating the bar with women’s sports memorabilia, Nguyen opened her establishment to the public. According to Portland Monthly, the opening was a big success, with people lining up outside to get in.
The Sports Bra will be an official Portland Thorns viewing location, but it plays everything from women’s collegiate level sports to Women’s National Basketball Association games to professional soccer games to gymnastics. When women’s games are not playing, the Sports Bra remains dedicated to its goal of putting women at the forefront by playing podcasts, interviews and documentaries about women’s sports and players, according to its website.
The Sports Bra’s website stated that, in addition to prioritizing women’s sports, the bar uses the women-owned Freeland Spirits for its signature cocktails. Women-owned vineyards and breweries are also featured, furthering the bar’s commitment to “support, promote and invest in the women who are changing the game.”
Inclusivity is a pillar of the Sports Bra’s guiding ideology. Accordingly, minors are welcome in the bar to allow parents and/or guardians the flexibility of bringing children to enjoy the games and expose them to women’s sports in a community setting. Vegan, vegetarian, gluten and dairy-free folks are also welcome, as the bar features an array of foods accommodating dietary restrictions.
“Our mission [is] to … provide a space that supports, empowers, and promotes girls and women in sports and in the community,” The Sports Bra’s website states. Fostering a culture of appreciation using women’s sports as a vessel for community building is critical to the bar’s staff and broadening base of supporters. According to Portland Monthly, televised sports coverage is overwhelmingly dominated by men’s games, with women’s sports — if played at all — saddled to a secondary status. The Sports Bra aims to fundamentally change that dynamic. By placing women at the forefront, the bar challenges the status quo of sports bars and sports consumption in public settings. According to The Sports Bra website, Nguyen believed tackling representation in sports by utilizing the traditional venue of a sports bar is a simple and effective way to challenge the lack of representation in sports broadcasting.
With community, representation and investment in women’s sports as the bar’s main priorities, Nguyen hopes The Sports Bra is the first step in a movement for better representation and investment in women’s sports and viewership. With women’s sports only constituting four percent of broadcasting, as reported by Portland Monthly, the Sports Bra is a venue for balancing out the discrepancy in accessibility to viewing women’s sports.
The bar’s website states, “The Sports Bra is not a sports bar for women, but a bar for women’s sports.” While the bar’s identity is grounded in its dedication to showcasing women’s sports, the Sports Bra’s true priority is simply creating a venue for people to view women’s sports the same way they view men’s sports.