A sports bar dedicated exclusively to women’s sport has just opened in Portland in what is believed to be a world first.
The bar, called The Sports Bra, hopes to promote women’s sport and get more people tuned into its coverage.
In a video posted to YouTube by Here is Oregon, The Sports Bra owner Jenny Nguyen said: “There’s female athletes on the walls, there’s female athletes on the tv screens and it’s those tiny changes that I think make a huge difference”.
She adds that too many people don’t understand the extent of fans across women’s sport.
“I feel like The Sports Bra will help give the general public an idea of how hot women’s sports really is. That’s kind of my hope – is that it builds this momentum and starts kind of a movement towards popularising women’s sports more.”
On its website, The Sports Bra said its mission is to use a familiar venture, a traditional sports bar, to promote women’s sport and coverage of women’s sport, which continues to lack investment and representation.
“Our goal is to play as much women’s sports as there is to offer and when there are no games to air, we will try to fill that space with women’s sports content like podcasts, interviews, documentaries and more,” The Sports Bra’s website states.
“Our mission is to support, empower and promote women and girls in the community through sports. By giving folks a place to celebrate women’s sports together with food and drink, we want to build a movement, a culture around women’s sports spectatorship and fandom that hasn’t been done before.
“The Sports Bra is not a sports bar for women, but a bar for women’s sports!”
The Sports Bra officially opened on April 1, with customers lining up outside.
According to a study from UNESCO, 40 per cent of participant in sports are women, yet women’s sport only gets around 4 per cent of total sports media coverage.