What Women Want: A Place to Watch the Game

“I was sick of always feeling like an afterthought in fandom when it came to public spaces to view sports,” says Jillian Hiscock, the owner of A Bar of Their Own, a sports bar focused on women’s sports which opened in Minneapolis March 1. “I really wanted to make sure that folks that were like me, that cared passionately about women’s sports, that they could go into a place and know that their favorite team is probably already going to be on. But if it’s not, we’d be a really safe and welcoming space to be able to ask that for the channel to be changed.”

Hiscock isn’t alone in this goal. A slew of women’s sports bars — which aim to provide safe and supportive places for women’s sports fans to watch a game — are popping up in cities across the U.S. and beyond. Watch Me! in Long Beach, California is working towards opening its doors before the summer. Althea’s is coming to New York City; the Other Team is hoping to secure funding in London. Icarus Wings and Things debuted in March 2023 in Salem, Oregon, and Peaches in Toronto, Ontario opened at the end of 2022. Parlor Sports in Somerville, Massachusetts isn’t exclusively dedicated to women’s sports but it prioritizes them (along with viewings of the Bachelor franchise), as does Whiskey Girl Tavern in Chicago.

This new wave of openings follows some impressive groundbreakers in the industry. The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon, opened its doors in April 2022 and was a first of its kind — a sports bar dedicated exclusively to women’s sports. It was an immediate success; the Sports Bra’s owner, Jenny Nguyen, recently revealed that she made $1 million in just her first eight months of business.

Rough and Tumble Pub, which has 18 screens dedicated exclusively to women’s sports, opened in Seattle in December 2022, right on the heels of the Sports Bra and is also doing well. Before it opened, owner Jen Barnes says there was maybe one local bar that would play some Seattle Reign FC games, despite the fact that the city’s National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team is one of the best in the country.

In February 2023, just months after opening, Rough and Tumble sold out its capacity of 255 during the Women’s World Cup. During the NCAA Women’s March Madness tournament, there were lines around the block. When the Reign made the NWSL playoffs that fall, the pub had to turn away thousands of fans who wanted to come watch the games.

But Rough and Tumble had a ripple effect on the city’s bars — when people couldn’t get into the women’s sports bar to watch the Reign, they went to the nearby establishments and filled them up. In all, there were well over 40 watch parties at Seattle bars and restaurants to view the NWSL championship. In 12 months, Seattle went from having one or two places that might play a Reign game here or there to selling out watch parties all over the city. “That is the power of women’s sports fans,” says Barnes.

In an industry with a massively high failure rate for new businesses, and in which successful establishments don’t usually see a profit until at least year three, the Sports Bra and Rough and Tumble Pub are showing that there is big business in women’s sports. “We are profitable now,” says Rough and Tumble’s Barnes. “We were profitable before one year.”

Not only is there a proven market for women’s sports and sports bars, there is also major investment happening. An October 2023 study from the Wasserman Group shows that 15 percent of total sports coverage is dedicated to women — while that doesn’t seem like a lot, that number has tripled in the last three years and has been led by social media and streaming services. Another fan survey shows that 77 percent of sports fans think brands should invest in women’s sports and 83 percent of brands plan to increase their investment in women’s sports in 2024.

Unfortunately, investors in the hospitality industry haven’t quite gotten the memo yet. The gender gap in Small Business Association loans is slowly closing, but both Nguyen and Barnes were denied SBA loans when they opened, turning to crowdfunding and the community to help them raise the funds. Hiscock ran into the same problem, becoming yet another female-owned business to be denied an SBA loan. Luckily the community came through, raising over $200,000 in just 75 days.

These sports bars face another major hurdle, too — even with all the growth, less than 5 percent of sports on TV are women’s. Bar owners have to get creative and make piecemeal viewing schedules to try to make it work, sometimes running replays and sometimes letting dead air run to prove a point. Not all of the bars exclusively play women’s games — one major difference between the Sports Bra and Rough and Tumble, for example, is that the latter will put on any game that their clientele may want to see.

“We have just as many NFL football fans — women — who will come in and watch their favorite team without the more toxic masculinity culture that can be somewhat rampant in a standard sports bar environment,” says Barnes (in 2021, women and girls made up 46 percent of the NFL’s fanbase, according to that year’s SSRS Sports Poll). “They’ll come for the Reign game and stay for the Seahawks game. I think that is something that’s incredibly special.”

These bars have a tough job — creating a space that feels welcoming for everyone who might want to access it. While none of them are exclusively queer establishments, most of the crop of recently opened women’s sports bars are owned by queer women and those owners acknowledge that a large number of women’s sports fans are queer. At the same time, they want to make sure their spaces feel accessible for, say, a straight father to bring his young daughter so she can watch her favorite athletes play.

Women’s sports is able to bridge that wide demographic gap because fans of all identities “are passionate about the same equity issues,” says Hiscock — odds are, someone who cares about women’s sports naturally cares about things like inclusion and equality, too. Many of these bars also have no tolerance policies for behaviors like racism, homophobia, transphobia, or sexist harassment, ensuring that the establishments’ most marginalized patrons always feel safe.

Barnes is glad that she and Nguyen are paving the way for others to follow in their footsteps. At the same time, she recognizes that so many things will be easier for the bars that come next. But this space — like the women’s sports community overall — isn’t about being in competition with each other. It’s about believing that a rising tide lifts all boats. Nguyen and Barnes supported each other when they were opening up their places, and they have offered that support to the next wave of bars, sharing their knowledge where they can. And this forthcoming group of owners is their own little sorority of sorts — they even have a group chat where they can vent about the process or share tips about getting permits or hiring chefs.

“It’s just been really positive and supportive and empowering,” says Jax Diener, who is opening Watch Me! with her wife, Emme. “It kind of gets you revved up and gets your adrenaline going and pushes you forward.”

The emphasis on building community is reflected in women’s sports fandom, too. Because women’s sports are still not as accessible or equitable as they should be, Barnes says that fans are much more likely to show up to support establishments that promote the women’s game. “There’s a feeling of ownership and investment on an individual basis that you just don’t get from commercialized men’s sports,” she says. These fans really believe that their participation will make a real difference. So do these bar owners.

Frankie de la Cretaz is the co-author of Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Football League.
Tim Evans is a documentary and editorial photographer based in Minneapolis.