Who Wants to Watch Women’s Sports at a Bar? At The Sports Bra, There’s a Line Out the Door.

Welcome to Wells $treet, where I cover business from an unusual angle, and I also cover unusual businesses. Today's Bulletin falls into the second category. If wacky success stories amuse and inspire you, subscribe to receive them directly to your inbox for free. And as Alan Hamel (aka Mr. Suzanne Somers) used to say in commercials for the long-gone grocery chain Alpha Beta (Google THAT one, kids), “Tell a friend.”

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On April 1, 2018, the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship between Notre Dame and Mississippi State was tied with one second left.

Then something spectacular happened, one of the most amazing “buzzer beaters” ever. Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale leapt into the air and hurled the ball toward the basket from outside the three-point line… and scored!

Jenny Nguyen watched it with a group of friends huddled around a TV in the corner of a large sports bar in Portland, Oregon. When Ogunbowale made that final shot, “We just lost it,” Jenny says. “I think I threw my hat across the restaurant.”

Everyone else in the bar was watching men’s sports, and they couldn’t understand what was going on with all those women in the corner high-fiving each other.

Later, in the parking lot, Jenny and her friends called it one of the best games they’d ever seen. “It would have been even more amazing if the sound had been on,” a friend added.

Jenny hadn’t even realized she’d watched the game without audio. In fact, the only reason they got to see the game at all is because Jenny and her friends asked a server to switch one of the more than 30 TVs tuned to men’s sports to the women’s game.

“I think right then it kind of crystallized this idea that I had gotten so accustomed to watching women’s sports in a public venue… compromised.”

Jenny joked to her friends that the only way to make things right was to open a bar of their own. She even came up with a name: The Sports Bra, transposing the letters for “bar” — “I love puns,” she tells me.

Jenny Nguyen, The Sports Bra owner/CNBC

Fast forward to 2022 and The Sports Bra opened April Fool’s Day in Portland, exactly four years after that epic buzzer beater by Ogunbowale. Inside, patrons see only women's sports on the bar’s half dozen TVs.

The Sports Bra/Photo by me

I visited the bar, er, bra, er, bar and interviewed Jenny for CNBC’s “The News With Shepard Smith” Friday as the WNBA season opened. Here’s my story:

I thought I’d share a little more of Jenny’s tale on Wells $treet.

A 2019 study from Purdue found that about 5% of TV airtime was dedicated to women’s sports, showing zero improvement since 1989. Zero improvement over 30 years.

Meanwhile, participation in sports by school-age girls has increased from 1 in 27 girls to 1 in 3 since Title IX was enacted in 1972, the federal law that mandated equal opportunities for women in athletics at schools receiving federal aid.

Given those numbers, why had no one thought of Jenny’s idea before?

Still, when I received the assignment for Shep's show, I rolled my eyes and thought, “How Portland is this?” But as Jenny told me her story, she got a little emotional, and so did I.

Jenny is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants and a Portland native. Most of her career has been spent working in kitchens around town, working her way up to executive chef.

She never considered herself an entrepreneur, and even after suggesting The Sports Bra, she never intended to open a bar. It just became a running joke that she and her friends would tell each other every time they went to a bar and had to beg to watch the WNBA. “At The Sports Bra, we would have this game on,” they’d tell each other, or “The Sports Bra would probably have a vegan version of nachos.”

Then the pandemic happened. And then George Floyd was killed. “The world went through this dramatic shift,” Jenny says.

Portland certainly did. A city lovingly portrayed as quirky, cute and weird in “Portlandia” became known as a place of violence and unrest.

Jenny says she began reassessing her life. “I had these itching, aching growing pains of wanting to be more active in the community, wanting to learn more and help out more.” She started delivering food boxes and helping out at a soup kitchen, “and it just didn’t feel like enough.”

Her girlfriend reminded her about The Sports Bra idea. “The layers started to unfold on all the different ways it could be helpful for Portland.”

She consulted a mentor who runs more than a dozen restaurants in the city. “The first thing he said is, ‘Are you willing to franchise?’” She hadn’t even thought about that. He warned her, “I wouldn’t tell another soul until you get something on paper.”

So Jenny Nguyen, who knew nothing about building a business, created a business plan and trademarked the name “The Sports Bra.” Every bank turned her down for a loan, though they loved the idea, but: 1) Covid was ruining restaurants; 2) No one had ever opened a bar dedicated to women’s sports before, so the idea was untested; 3) Jenny had no experience.

Okay then! Time for Plan B. Jenny risked her entire savings of $25,000 and then raised about $35,000 from friends and family. A Kickstarter campaign went nuts with over $100,000 in pledges. The rest is history.

Since the bar opened in April, business has been steady. There are about a dozen tables inside, plus several stools along the bar, and the night I visited there was a line out the door. Jenny says that’s normal. Most of the customers are women, many from the local LGBTQ+ community, but about 20% are men.

Customers told me they love the concept, the vibe, the food, and all the local beers (21 taps from breweries that are either owned by women and/or have women brewers... #Portland).

“People want to hug me and say, ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life for this,’” Jenny says, including older women who played sports in college before Title IX was passed.

But Jenny feels tremendous pressure to have The Sports Bra succeed. It’s gotten so much attention, yet she knows the failure rate for new businesses — especially restaurants — is high.

Her father told her something recently that relieved some of her worries. “He goes, ‘Honestly, if The Sports Bra failed tomorrow, your idea has already been a success. You’ve already opened this box, and you flipped the switch for everybody, and you can’t ever turn the switch off.’”

So Jenny Nguyen already feels like she’s won. And while an idea like The Sports Bra might only be born in a city like Portland, she hopes to one day franchise it to other cities.

One thing hasn’t changed. She still loves corny puns. The motto for The Sports Bra? “We support women.”

Cover image: Courtney Vandersloot of the Chicago Sky goes up against Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury during the WNBA finals in October, 2021, by Stacy Revere/Getty Images. Meantime, Brittney remains "wrongfully detained" in Russia after being arrested entering the country while allegedly possessing vape cartridges containing hashish oil.

Star players like Griner compete in countries like Russia because they can make $1 million there, while the top WNBA salaries are less than $250,000… but that's a story for another column.