At first glance, Sports Bra may seem like a typical neighborhood sports bar, but guests will soon notice that its posters and televisions exclusively feature women’s sports and realize it’s anything but your average watering hole playing live games.
That’s exactly what the pub’s owner, Jenny Nguyen, intended.
“Ultimately, my mission is to expose as many people as possible to women’s sports, give people access,” Nguyen, 42, told NBC News.
The bar, which opened in Portland, Oregon, just last month, has already become a popular haunt for women and the LGBTQ community, especially since the city has lost all of its lesbian bars, a trend that has grown across the United States over the last several decades. There are only about 20 lesbian bars left in the country, compared to about 200 that existed in the 1980s.
But Nguyen, who is gay, stresses that the bar is welcoming of everyone. While a majority of its patrons are women, she said, the Sports Bra is an inclusive space that also attracts a large number of families and even quite a few men — many of whom, according to her, say they prefer watching women’s sports because female athletes “give 110 percent all the time.”
Nguyen, a Portland native and avid women’s basketball fan, opened the Sports Bra near the corner of Northeast Broadway and 25th Avenue to jampacked crowds April 1, the launch of the NCAA women’s Final Four basketball tournament, and has kept busy since. On any given day, patrons might catch a game of college softball, volleyball or soccer. But the bar features plenty of other women’s sports including football, tennis, golf, swimming and even those not typically seen in sports bars, such as gymnastics, cheerleading and ultimate frisbee.
“Basically, whatever we can get our hands on, we will play it,” Nguyen said.
