Open Road Week 1: Changing the Channel at The Sports Bra
When you walk in the doors, you see a wall full of women’s sports memorabilia, a tap list full of women-owned and women-brewed beers, and tables that were handmade by Girls Build, a non-profit that inspires curiosity and confidence in girls through the world of building. Each piece of art, signed poster, and trophy has a story, a history, and a deeper meaning. The gallery wall is full of hidden gems (!) dedicated to women’s sports from local heroes to the national greats. Each and every detail of The Sports Bra in Portland is dedicated to supporting women and building community.
The Sports Bra is the first and only sports bar that is dedicated to women’s sports, and it has deservedly received huge press in NPR, on CNBC, and on Today. Did you know that women make up 40% of sportspeople, however as of 2020 they continue to only receive 4% of the total sports media coverage in print and broadcast devoted to them? (Source: https://www.athleteassessments.com/gender-equality-debate/) The Sports Bra’s mission is to make great food, delicious drinks, and provide a space that supports, empowers, and promotes girls and women in sports and in the community. “The Bra’’ strives to build a community that embraces, celebrates and empowers girls and women, on and off the field. This sports bar isn’t like others. It is a place of belonging, acceptance, and celebration for all. Kids are welcome as they believe exposing them to women’s sports can have lasting impacts on their understanding of equity in sports and in life.
The Sports Bra founder Jenny Nguyen is passionate about bringing visibility to all women’s sports. In Jenny’s experience, asking a normal sports bar to play women’s sports always felt like a compromise. In her wildest dreams, Jenny envisioned a sports bar that only showed women’s sports. She imagined flipping the switch on the TV (and also flipping the letters in the word bar) to create a safe and empowering place called The Sports Bra. What started as a joke and a dream became a reality on April 1, 2022. Jenny could not have anticipated what The Sports Bra’s opening day would mean to her customers, her community, and her mission.
Just a month after opening, the Hidden JEMMS team partnered with Jenny and The Sports Bra to tackle our first week on the Open Road. In our initial conversations with Jenny, it became clear that The Bra had been so overwhelmingly busy for the last month that she hadn’t had time to reflect on her success. A successful Kickstarter campaign, going viral, and night after night of an endless stream of customers can keep you pretty busy! As we learned more, Jenny made it clear that there were very clear short term projects and more open ended long term projects that would help her move the mission of The Sports Bra forward.
1. Women’s Sports League Directory — While there are an endless list of women’s sports leagues and viewers who are interested in watching women’s sports, there is no centralized way to watch women’s sports. Leagues of all professional levels and regions are watched via different services. To tackle this problem, our team helped Jenny create a comprehensive directory of women’s sports leagues. Jenny’s vision is to partner with these leagues to allow The Sports Bra to broadcast their games and increase visibility for women’s sports. The hope is that if The Sports Bra can build these partnerships, then sports bars all over the country and world can do the same!
2. TV Content between Live Sports — Unfortunately, women’s sports do not get the same air time that men’s sports receive. Sports Illustrated did a study on media coverage in sports and found that eighty percent of the televised sports news programs and highlight shows analyzed included zero stories on women’s sports. (https://www.si.com/sports-illustrated/2021/03/24/womens-sports-gender-study-discrepancy) For this reason, there are NOT always live women’s sports to broadcast at The Bra. To bring visibility to this issue and educate her customers on why there would be gaps in sports broadcasting, Jenny worked with us to create educational content to display on the TVs between sports. This is just one example of how Jenny is using her platform to bring visibility to the gaps in women’s sports.
3. Customer Survey — After a month of operations, our team wanted to work with Jenny to understand her customers. We wanted to better understand why people are coming in, what sports they’d like to see, and what they’d like to see between sports. Out of the 160 survey respondents, over 70% said their primary reason for coming to The Bra was ‘To Support the Mission’ and ‘Community’. Over 66% of respondents identified as a minority. Jenny’s vision and execution has created a safe, inclusive, and mission driven community.
4. Growth Roadmap — Finally, Jenny’s success in her first month of operations has her thinking about growth and the potential for expansion. Our team worked with Jenny to put together a growth roadmap — a series of steps that she can take in the future to assess opportunities for growth and what expansion could look like for The Sports Bra. As Jenny put it, she wants to start a movement and whether it’s her or someone else, she wants to see women’s sports bars and sports bars that broadcast women’s sports all over the world.
Tackling The Sports Bra’s challenges and working with Jenny for a week has taught us more than we ever could have hoped for.
- Be intentional — Each and every detail of The Bra reflects the organization’s mission and values. Each decoration, food and bev selection, and business decision is decided on with the same level of clear intention and mission alignment. This decision making has allowed Jenny and The Bra to remain loyal to its mission and brand. For example, Jenny holds all of her vendors, from beef to brewers to distributors, accountable by partnering with organizations that have women representation and support women.
- The right person with the right idea at the right time — When we asked Jenny why she decided she wanted to start The Bra, she told us that she knew deep down that it had to be her that founded it. The sports industry and women’s athletics is rapidly changing. Athletes are demanding gender equity in sports and beyond. She knew this was the right idea and the right moment to create a women’s sports bar. Jenny also told us that she knew that if she saw someone else do it, she would always regret that she wasn’t the person that did it.
- Value your mission over your ego — Throughout our week with Jenny, she made it very clear that empowering women and bringing visibility to women’s sports is a movement that doesn’t stop with her. She knows that if The Sports Bra went out of business tomorrow, the movement wouldn’t stop. This idea, this mission, and what it means to people will continue on and continue to grow with or without her. Jenny’s dream is that there is a Sports Bra or even a competitor in every major city in the country (and the world!) This mission-focused mindset allows Jenny to think critically and creatively about avenues for expansion and how The Bra can make the biggest impact.
To say our week at The Sports Bra was impactful is an understatement. We were so lucky to work with a founder that is not only building a mission and a movement, but hoping to expand that dream worldwide. We are so excited to follow The Sports Bra on this journey!
