© via CNBC Jenny Nguyen, 43, is the founder and owner of Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon.
When Jenny Nguyen signed the lease for her dream bar, she wasn’t sure it would last more than a few months.
But earlier this month, Nguyen, 43, celebrated his first birthday in Portland, Oregon. Aptly called The Sports Bra, this sports bar is the only sports bar on TV.
Despite a good business model and inflation increasing the cost of food and beverages, business was good. Documents reviewed by CNBC Make It show that Sport Brasil has earned $944,000 in the eight months since its launch in 2022.
“The first year of operation was profitable,” Nguyen added.
“It’s very universal: that feeling when you’re a fan of women’s sports and you go to a public place like a sports bar and it’s hard to find a place to show the competition. [women’s] There is a game, especially if there are other men’s sports that are played.” , – Nguyen says.
At first, she wasn’t entirely sure the idea would work. Historically, most of the money and attention has been given to men’s sports, which is why Sports Bra is said to be the first bar in the country to televise only women’s sports.
It’s not something Nguyen usually does: she describes herself as “very cautious, risk-averse.” But her obsession with women’s sports and her frustration with the lack of television screens prompted her to invest her life savings (about $27,000) and give it a try.
“Personally, I thought the idea was brilliant and something the world needed,” says Nguyen. But I didn’t know that the world wanted it. I want to try.
How the sports corset went from joke to reality
Nguyen is a lifelong basketball fan who played the sport at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington before tearing her ACL. He also has a long history of working in the restaurant industry, spending three years as a chef at Reed College.
In the year In 2018, Nguyen and a group of friends wanted to watch the NCAA women’s basketball championship game. They went to a mostly empty sports bar and still had to beg the bartender to switch one of the small televisions from men’s sports to women’s league games.
Together, they jumped to celebrate “one of the best games I’ve ever seen,” Nguyen says, as his three-pointer sealed the championship for Notre Dame. After that she was struck by the normalcy of her condition.
“[We] We were used to watching these games the way we did, and the best viewing situation would be “having our own seats,” he said.
© Courtesy of CNBC The sports bra wall is decorated with women’s sports memorabilia, including a picture of former women’s soccer star Brandi Chastain.
A few days later, he channeled his frustration into a hypothetical question: What would the bar be called? “The first thing that came to mind was a sports bra,” says Nguyen. “And once I thought about it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, you know? It was fun. I thought it was funny.
He had been teasing him for years. So the failure of social justice movements like #MeToo and the racial tension in the country after the murder of George Floyd made her want to make a bigger impact on peace and her community.
Nguyen, who came out as a lesbian at the age of 17, says she is not always welcome at traditional sports bars. A sports bra can help, and anyone who is not more accepted in other sports facilities will feel this way.
“It would be great if we could bring even one kid here and make them feel like they belong in this sport,” she said.
Help open other women’s sports bars.
At first, Nguyen had $40,000 in savings and loans from friends and family. This will keep the sports bra up to three months, based on labor, material and other cost estimates.
In the year
To Nguyen’s surprise, the company raised more than $105,000 in 30 days. “The moment I looked at the Kickstarter chart, I thought to myself, ‘This could work,'” he says.
But the money received from all parts of the country and the world was not a guarantee of success. Real people in Portland still have to go to bars.
Currently, there is often a queue at the entrance. Women’s basketball icons like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi appeared at the Buick-sponsored event earlier this month. Like Nguyen, Jeanie Gilder, owner of the WNBA’s Seattle Hurricanes, lines up to watch her team play on television in a sports bra.
Nguyen is a far cry from his Kickstarter days, when several banks and small business associations turned down his business loans. They often cite the risk of being an entrepreneur trying to implement a unique concept during the pandemic, he said.
Even the bar’s basic concept is hot: It’s hard to find enough women’s sports events to fill a TV screen. According to a 2021 study by the University of Southern California, only 5 percent of all televised sports coverage was devoted to female athletes.
Nguyen said she began reaching out directly to sports networks and streaming services, some of which allowed her to access more women’s sports content. He also spends a lot of time “filtering” television programs, comparing the process to “cutting through the forest with a machete.”
But now she is not alone. Another women’s sports bar opened in nearby Seattle, and Nguyen said she reached out to other businesswomen for advice on opening similar establishments in other cities.
“I want as many people as possible to feel what people feel when they walk through these doors,” he said. “I find it very selfish to keep him in this building where 40 people live at a time.”
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