For decades, women's sports have fought for a place in the spotlight. But a new sports bar coming to Boston is looking to change that.
The Sports Bra, a bar where everyone will have a front-row seat to women's sports, is planning to move to Boston.
"We know that maybe not everyone is as invested in women's sports, but we really want to be the representation so that you can," said Lydia Coverdale-Perez, co-owner of The Sports Bra Boston.
The Sports Bra is more than just a bar – it's a movement reflecting the growing demand for women's sports. The bar is dedicated to showing women's sports exclusively and it is now expanding across the country through franchises.
"It was kind of like, 'How could we say no' type of setup, and 'How do we not really push for this?' when we really felt confident we'd be a great group to bring it here?" said Whitney Edwards, co-owner of The Sports Bra.
Sports journalist Jemele Hill, WNBA legend Sheryl Swoops and Olympic gold medalist gymnast Jordan Chiles were in Boston to take part in a conversation on navigating adversity and leadership as part of Jaylen Brown's 7uice Foundation's Bridge Program.
Coverdale-Perez and Edwards, along with six other friends, have been running a group called "Watch With Us Boston" for the past year and a half, hosting pop-up events and watch parties for women's sports. When the opportunity to bring The Sports Bra to Boston presented itself, it seemed like a natural fit. Now, the eight friends form the ownership group for The Sports Bra Boston.
"We really feel like this is a great moment for Boston's women's sports scene," said Coverdale-Perez.
The Sports Bra's flagship location opened in 2022 in Portland, Oregon. Boston is one of the four new franchise locations added to the roster along with Indianapolis, Las Vegas and St. Louis.
"The first year after The Sports Bra opened, I really started to feel like, 'Gosh, every person that walks through that door is transformed by their experience at The Sports Bra.' Why wouldn't we want as many people as possible to have that same experience elsewhere?" said Jenny Nguyen, founder and CEO of The Sports Bra.
The demand for women's sports has only grown. Over the past five years, media coverage of women's sports has increased by 275%.
"In 2022, we struggled to find live sports to show on all of our TVs all the time we were open, and now it's just like, we have five TVs, and there are days when there aren't enough TVs to show all the games that people want to see," said Nguyen.
The Boston owners are more than ready to meet the moment and they have a vision.
"A community centered space that's multigenerational, that's diverse, and that has an openness to receive anyone from casual sports fans to people who are largely impacted by sports," said Edwards.
"Imagine a place where younger kids can come in with their families and they can sit down and eat and see women's sports on TV," added Coverdale-Perez. "It doesn't matter who you are, but you can enjoy a different representation and you can go, 'Oh, I have some ideas, maybe I want to play pro, or maybe I want to do a job in women's sports,' just, the sky's the limit."
The owners are still vetting locations, both inside and outside the city, and have not yet set an opening date.
While Nguyen would love to see the Boston location open in the next six to nine months, she said each franchise will be on its own timeline.
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