Restaurant Showing Only Women’s Sports to Expand in US

There is a place in Portland, Oregon where people like to spend time enjoying food and drinks and watching sports on television.

俄勒冈州波特兰市有一个地方，人们喜欢在那里享受美食和饮料，并观看电视上的体育赛事。

Places like it are called sports bars in America. This sports bar in Portland has an unusual name. It is called The Sports Bra, and it only shows women’s sports events on television.

像这样的地方在美国被称为运动酒吧。 波特兰的这家运动酒吧有一个不寻常的名字。 它被称为“运动胸罩”，只在电视上播放女性体育赛事。

A sports bra is a piece of under clothing that many women wear while exercising.

运动胸罩是许多女性在运动时穿着的一件内衣。

The Portland sports bar is getting so popular that some well-known investors are getting interested. They include Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of social media service Reddit. They want to expand The Sports Bra restaurants all over the U.S. Ohanian is also the husband of one of the world’s most famous female athletes – Serena Williams. He runs an investment fund that will help businesspeople open restaurants in their cities.

波特兰体育酒吧越来越受欢迎，一些知名投资者也开始感兴趣。 其中包括社交媒体服务 Reddit 的联合创始人亚历克西斯·奥哈尼安 (Alexis Ohanian)。 他们希望将 The Sports Bra 餐厅扩展到美国各地。奥哈尼安也是世界上最著名的女运动员之一塞雷娜·威廉姆斯的丈夫。 他经营着一个投资基金，帮助商人在自己的城市开设餐馆。

Jenny Nguyen founded The Sports Bra. She said she only wanted to create a little restaurant. She is surprised by the interest in her business. “Things have happened at light speed,” Nguyen said.

珍妮·阮 (Jenny Nguyen) 创立了 The Sports Bra。 她说她只想开一家小餐馆。 她对人们对她的生意感兴趣感到惊讶。 “事情以光速发生，”阮说。

The time appears to be right for bars like The Sports Bra because of the sudden interest in women’s sports. There are other successful bars that only show women’s sports, but have different names, in cities including Minneapolis, Minnesota and Seattle, Washington.

由于人们对女性运动突然产生兴趣，The Sports Bra 这样的酒吧似乎正逢其时。 在明尼苏达州的明尼阿波利斯和华盛顿州的西雅图等城市，还有其他一些成功的酒吧只展示女性运动，但有不同的名称。

The recent women’s college basketball championship in the U.S. was the most-watched ever. Almost 19 million people watched the final game on April 7. For the first time, that was more than watched the men’s final game.

最近在美国举行的女子大学篮球锦标赛是有史以来收视率最高的一场。 近 1900 万人观看了 4 月 7 日的决赛。观看人数首次超过男子决赛的观看人数。

One week later, 2.45 million people watched the WNBA draft. The event is where professional teams choose college players to play for them. People wanted to see the Indiana Fever pick the University of Iowa’s star player Caitlin Clark. Clark recently signed a $28 million contract to advertise for Nike shoes.

一周后，有 245 万人观看了 WNBA 选秀。 该赛事是职业球队选择大学球员为他们效力的活动。 人们希望看到印第安纳热队选中爱荷华大学的明星球员凯特琳·克拉克。 克拉克最近签署了一份价值 2800 万美元的合同，为耐克鞋做广告。

Interest is increasing for other women’s sports. Almost 2 million fans went to women’s World Cup soccer games in Australia and New Zealand last year. A women’s volleyball game played in a football stadium in Nebraska brought in 92,000 fans last August. It was the largest-ever crowd for a women’s sports event.

人们对其他女子运动的兴趣正在增加。 去年，近 200 万球迷观看了澳大利亚和新西兰的女足世界杯比赛。 去年八月，在内布拉斯加州的一个足球场举行的一场女排比赛吸引了 92,000 名球迷。 这是女子体育赛事有史以来观众人数最多的一次。

Lauren Anderson is director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon. She called the current time a “pinnacle moment,” adding that women’s sports seem to be “more than just a flash in the pan.”

劳伦·安德森是俄勒冈大学华沙体育商业中心主任。 她称当前为“巅峰时刻”，并补充说女子运动似乎“不仅仅是昙花一现”。

Nguyen said sports bars were not always welcoming to women. A sports fan all her life, she said she would only go to sports bars with friends because she felt uncomfortable going alone. She remembered that people who worked at the bar would not always put women’s sports on the televisions.

阮说，体育酒吧并不总是欢迎女性。 她一生都是体育迷，她说她只会和朋友一起去体育酒吧，因为她觉得一个人去很不舒服。 她记得在酒吧工作的人不会总是在电视上播放女子运动。

She said she wanted to start The Sports Bra to “flip the status quo.” And now that the restaurant has been in business for several years, she has a favorite memory. It came in 2022 when a large crowd came to watch Serena Williams’ final match. People cheered loudly when Williams made a good shot, and the whole bar was quiet when the players were hitting the ball back and forth.

她说她想创办 The Sports Bra 来“扭转现状”。 如今餐厅已经营业好几年了，她有了一段美好的回忆。 2022 年，大批观众前来观看塞雷娜·威廉姆斯的最后一场比赛。 当威廉姆斯打出好球时，人们大声欢呼，而当球员们来回击球时，整个酒吧都安静了。

Toward the end, she said, many people got emotional thinking that they would never see Williams play again. They started crying, and Nguyen passed out facial paper so people could wipe away their tears.

她说，到最后，很多人都情绪激动地认为他们再也看不到威廉姆斯的比赛了。 他们开始哭泣，阮分发面纸，以便人们擦干眼泪。

Williams’ final match was on television all over the world, but fans came to enjoy it together. Nguyen said people were watching through the windows because there was not enough space inside.

威廉姆斯的最后一场比赛在世界各地的电视转播中进行，但球迷们也前来观看。 阮说，人们只能透过窗户观看，因为里面没有足够的空间。

But not every women’s sport is easy to find. College and Olympic sports like water polo, volleyball, tennis, softball and others are rarely on big TV channels. It can be costly to purchase a special TV channel that only carries smaller sports events. A place like The Sports Bra offers those unusual games for people wanting to see them.

但并不是每一项女子运动都很容易找到。 水球、排球、网球、垒球等大学和奥林匹克运动项目很少出现在大型电视频道上。 购买只播放小型体育赛事的特殊电视频道的成本可能很高。 像 The Sports Bra 这样的地方为想要观看这些不寻常的游戏的人们提供了这些游戏。

But not everyone likes going to a place like a sports bar to watch games on television.

但并不是每个人都喜欢去体育酒吧这样的地方观看电视上的比赛。

Joanna is a fan who was walking into a recent professional baseball game in San Diego.

乔安娜是一名球迷，她最近正在圣地亚哥观看一场职业棒球比赛。

“I don’t think I would go. I don’t really like going to watch sports at bars. I’m more of like a ‘live, in-person’ (fan).”

“我想我不会去。 我不太喜欢去酒吧看体育比赛。 我更像是一个‘现场的、面对面的’（粉丝）。”

She was with Alex, who said he probably would go:

她和亚历克斯在一起，他说他可能会去：

“It would be interesting. I mean, it depends on what sport I’m watching. I do watch the WNBA once in a while on the TV. And also, like, pickleball, those are the co-eds and the singles, women's, so I mean, I would watch it.”

“这会很有趣。 我的意思是，这取决于我正在观看什么运动。 我偶尔会在电视上观看 WNBA 比赛。 而且，就像匹克球一样，这些都是男女混合和单打、女子的，所以我的意思是，我会看它。”

One fan, Shreya, was standing outside of a sports bar watching the end of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball game on television. She said she would go to The Sports Bra but said she wants to be sure it is not just a scheme to get people into the bar.

一位名叫施瑞亚 (Shreya) 的球迷站在一家体育酒吧外面，在电视上观看洛杉矶湖人队篮球比赛的结束。 她说她会去The Sports Bra，但她想确定这不仅仅是一个吸引人们进入酒吧的计划。

“I follow the WNBA. The local (San Diego) Wave (women’s) soccer team. I have two girls. Assuming it has some sort of family-friendly vibe, like a restaurant and bar, it would be cool. The reason for the pause was because I don’t feel like it should be segregated. I would want it to be at par with men’s sports.’”

“我关注 WNBA。 当地（圣地亚哥）Wave（女子）足球队。 我有两个女孩。 假设它有某种适合家庭的氛围，比如餐厅和酒吧，那就很酷了。 暂停的原因是因为我觉得不应该隔离。 我希望它能与男子运动持平。”

One expert agrees. Tarlan Chahardovali is an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina in the department of Sport and Entertainment Management. Chahardovali said there is still work to be done to make sure the media market does not undervalue women’s sports. She said there needs to be investment to be sure the current popularity does not disappear.

一位专家对此表示同意。 Tarlan Chahardovali 是南卡罗来纳大学体育和娱乐管理系的助理教授。 查哈多瓦利表示，要确保媒体市场不会低估女子运动的价值，还有很多工作要做。 她说需要投资以确保当前的受欢迎程度不会消失。

“Today’s numbers are hard to ignore, and I think it’s a very exciting time,” she said.

“今天的数字很难被忽视，我认为这是一个非常激动人心的时刻，”她说。