The Sports Bra announces first franchise sites as women’s sports bars multiply across the country

The GIST: Yesterday, Portland-based women’s sports bar The Sports Bra named the first four cities for its forthcoming expansion. Since opening in 2022, The Sports Bra has spurred a movement of independent women’s sports bars popping up across the U.S. and is now looking to become a multi-city franchise of its own.

• This nationwide growth shows how women’s sports fans are clamoring to find community, which aligns perfectly with the sports bar concept and presents key opportunities for brands hoping for an in with avid women’s sports fans. Bar down.

The details: After announcing franchise plans last spring, the brand is opening bars in Boston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and St. Louis. The Sports Bra cited the rise in women’s pro football, basketball, hockey and soccer teams in these cities as reasons for the selections.

The landscape: While restaurants famously have a high failure rate, opening a sports bar can be a potentially lucrative venture even though it’s a niche category: There were only about 1.5K in the U.S. in 2023 among 63K bars.

• Even though women’s sports bars are more niche, the concept is catching on. The number of bars has been rapidly rising and is expected to go from six in early 2025 to two dozen by the end of the year as women’s sports fans crowd existing bars.

• This mirrors the recent increase in media coverage — a bar showing women’s sports 24/7 is only possible if women’s sports are actually on TV. According to our findings with Barbarian, media coverage has increased 275% in the past five years and women’s sports generated a 300% revenue increase between 2022 and 2024. Onward and upward.

The takeaway: Avid women’s sports fans are more likely to buy tickets, merch, and subscriptions to watch sports, but not every fan can catch games in person. When these avid supporters do have an opportunity to meet, they show up in droves — something Unwell’s Alex Cooper anticipated in her hydration company’s recent activation at a Bay FC game.

• Brands like Ally have already begun to harness the power in partnering with these bars and getting messaging in front of these fans, but there’s still many opportunities available in the space to reach a smaller, close-knit community that may be primed to like and subscribe. Here for the party.