The Sports Bra Builds Women's Sports Fandom Into a Franchise
Three years ago, The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon, was the only sports bar in the United States dedicated to women's sports. Now, it's a franchise.
Today, backed by Alexis Ohanian's 776 Foundation , The Sports Bra announced plans to open its first franchises in Boston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and St. Louis. Considering that there were only six bars across the country dedicated to women's sports at the beginning of 2025, The Sports Bra is growing at the same pace as the corner of the industry it helped carve out, with nearly 30 women's sports bars set to exist by the end of the year.
"The Sports Bra is more than just a place to watch the game-it's a movement," said Sports Bra founder and CEO Jenny Nguyen. “Our team spoke with hundreds of interested people about opening a franchise location, and we've met some incredible people along the way. These owner/operators are capable, enthusiastic, and deeply committed to The Bra's mission.”
A chef and former college basketball player, Nguyen opened The Sports Bra in 2022 with a two-week Kickstarter campaign to build a place where underrepresented communities could come to watch under-televised sports. She built family recipes for ribs and wings into the menu and used spirits from women-owned breweries and distilleries to stock the taps and fuel cocktails like The GOAT and Title IX.
The bar made its first $1 million in less than a year, and an influx of fans brought partnerships with brands, including Clif Bar, Focus Features, The Athletic, and Nike.
For those who were looking, the demand for what The Sports Bra offered was always there. Last year, a report by research firm Bain & Company found that, when asked why people don't engage with women's sports as much as men's, 40% blamed a lack of coverage. Another 30% said women's sports were poorly marketed, while 27% said women's sports broadcasts were too hard to find.
"We opened the doors to a space where people have easy access to women's sports, and then bam, Day One, 3,000 people showed up," Nguyen told Single Sparkleafter initially announcing The Sports Bra's franchising plan last year. "We've tapped into something that has been needed for a long time, so we help to prove that the fan base is out there. Now we're seeing other bars open and seeing exactly the same turnouts, the demand for more spaces like that."
If you show it, they will watch
If women's sports were more readily available, 40% of the general population and more than half of sports fans said they'd watch. The changes within sports media during The Sports Bra's tenure have proven it.
In November 2023, little more than a year after The Sports Bra opened, The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) signed a $240 million, four-year media rights deal with Paramount's CBS Sports, Amazon Prime Video, Disney's ESPN, and Scripps' ION. At the time, it was the most lucrative broadcast contract in women's sports history.
Last summer, after the NCAA saw record viewership for women's basketball March Madness and the WNBA saw huge audiences for its draft and early-season games, the league announced the renewal of media rights partnerships with Amazon Prime Video and ESPN parent company Disney, as well as a new deal with NBCUniversal. The 11-year deals broadcast 125 WNBA games a year, expand WNBA League Pass services internationally through Amazon, and allow the league to pick up more media partners along the way.
Those deals are valued at $2.2 billion -or roughly six times the value of the W's current deal with ESPN-and might reach as much as $3 billion with additional partners (like current WNBA broadcaster ION). As a result, Wasserman's women-focused practice, The Collective, expects NWSL viewership to grow 24% by 2027 and WNBA viewership to jump 32% during the same span.
With ESPN seeing rising viewership for women's college sports and new women's leagues for volleyball, rugby, basketball, soccer, hockey, and softball all receiving media rights deals of their own, Deloitte's projection for $2.35 billion in women's sports revenue by the end of 2025 made The Sports Bra's franchising seem nearly inevitable. Now, The Sports Bra is calling attention to women's sports teams throughout its new markets, including the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever (hosts of this year’s WNBA All-Star Game), the Women's National Football Conference's Las Vegas Silver Stars, NWSL 2026 expansion franchise Boston Legacy FC, the Professional Women's Hockey League's Boston Fleet, and the Women's Football Alliance's St. Louis Slam.
"Together, we’re serving fans nationwide who are hungry for spaces that not only champion women's sports but create a community where everyone feels like they belong,” Nguyen said. "There is no better moment than this to open these places."
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