A bar of their own: Portland's Sports Bra will only show women's sports

It was April 1, 2018, and Jenny Nguyen and her friends had just watched one of the best basketball games she had ever seen.

It was the NCAA women's basketball final, with Notre Dame facing off against Mississippi State. In the corner of a Portland, Ore., bar, Nguyen and her friends had held their breaths as the game, tied at 58-58 in the fourth quarter, rolled into its final seconds.

Fresh from a timeout, Notre Dame inbounded the ball to its star junior. Arike Ogunbowale pivoted hard to her left and pulled up for a three-point shot, the ball arcing over a Mississippi State player's outstretched arms and dropping right into the basket.

Boom. Game over.

"We went nuts — screaming and jumping," Nguyen said. "No one else in the entire bar was watching our game. So they were like, 'What just happened?'"

After they left the bar, Nguyen remembers one of her friends saying: "That game was amazing. It would have been so much better if we had the sound on."

Nguyen had become so accustomed to watching women's games in silence that she hadn't even noticed: "It was almost always a little bit of a chore to get a women's game on TV," Nguyen said. "It would never just naturally be on."

That bar of their own soon became an in-joke among Nguyen and her friends. She even gave it a name: The Sports Bra. The tagline? "We support women."

Four years later, what began as a joke will soon be a reality. In April, Nguyen, 42, opened the Sports Bra in Portland — a bar only playing women's sports.

Early coverage of Nguyen's venture has received praise from women's sports fans around the world, many of whom could relate to the struggle of finding a welcoming, communal place to watch female athletes.

"Would love brooklyn to get something similar so I can stop trying to sweet talk bartenders into turning on espn3," wrote one person on Twitter. Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan called the bar a "great idea."

A study from the University of Southern California and Purdue University found that coverage of female athletes on televised news and highlight shows barely budged between 1989 and 2019. They commanded just 5% of airtime in 1989, and 5.4% of airtime in 2019. Remove coverage of the 2019 Women's World Cup, and that rate drops even more, researchers noted.

Growing up in Portland, Nguyen didn't view sports as a hobby. It was her identity.

Her "jam" was basketball. Nguyen would bring her basketball with her everywhere — to the mall, to restaurants, even to bed.

But her skills on the court were also a shield, she said. As a high-schooler who identified as queer and was not yet out, Nguyen said being a good basketball player made her feel accepted and "protected."

Nguyen's life has continued to revolve around watching and playing sports, even after tearing her ACL at 19, effectively ending her college basketball career. She picked up cooking, eventually working her way up to being an executive chef.

But the tipping point for the Sports Bra didn't come until 2020, Nguyen said. The pandemic had upended life, and the country's racial reckoning prompted protesters to take to the streets in Portland and other cities around the world. Like many others, Nguyen said she found herself searching for ways she could do more for her community.

Nguyen was skeptical: Would a women's-sports-only bar really help the community?

But then she and Leavens started talking about how important visibility is for women's sports, Nguyen said: Having a bar packed full of people who come specifically to watch women's sports could counter arguments that there isn't any interest. Plus, the Sports Bra was exactly the kind of establishment she and her girlfriend would have loved to encounter as kids. A place where they could feel welcome and find community — and be inspired.

"Maybe you don't notice right away, but you sit down and then you look at the TV and you realize, 'Oh, it's all women's sports on TV' ... 'Oh, all these posters are of female athletes,' " Nguyen said.

Women-owned or operated businesses form the backbone of Nguyen's menu: She is tapping women distillers, brewers, ranchers and farmers for her spirits, beers, burgers and specialty vegetables.

Fans of women's sports have rallied behind the Sports Bra, sharing support for Nguyen on social media and e-mailing her directly about their excitement.

Both avid sports fans, Guillotte and his wife, Lora Guillotte, wanted to immerse themselves in Portland's sports community when they moved there in 2013. They knew soccer was big out there, so they caught a Portland Timbers game, but were disappointed in the atmosphere and the play.

Then, in 2015, fresh off the Women's World Cup, they went to see a Portland Thorns match — the local National Women's Soccer League team.

"We were just blown away," Guillotte said. They loved the joyous atmosphere and marveled at the players, like U.S. Women's National Team star Alex Morgan. By next year, they were season ticket holders. The Guillottes came to evangelize for the team — and the sport.

According to Guillotte, Lora used to put it this way: "Where else are you going to get 20,000 people cheering for 11 women doing their jobs?"

Still, he said, when the team played away games, they always struggled to find a place that would broadcast them.

When he came upon news of the Sports Bra last month, Guillotte knew he had to reach out to Nguyen: If Lora were alive, she would have been banging down the door to work for Nguyen, he said.

"I have massive respect for [Nguyen]," Guillotte said. Because of Lora's planning, he knows how risky opening up a women's sports bar is — especially during a pandemic. "What she's doing takes guts."

Under Lora's name, he gave the maximum Kickstarter donation he could make. He is also donating her most beloved sports memorabilia — all from women's sports teams and players — to the Sports Bra.

"It's stuff she treasured," he said. "I wanted the Sports Bra to be the home for these things."

He plans on spending a lot of time at the bar himself. There's no shortage of female athletes to watch, Guillotte said — he's recently become enthralled by women's rugby.