Lesbians And Legalized Gambling Are Vying To Save The American Sports Bar
If I were to ask you to close your eyes and conjure a mental image of a sports bar, perhaps you’d envision a space with tons of televisions on the wall, each playing a different baseball game or soccer match while clumps of dudes yell at each other about those aforementioned sports. Maybe your mind’s eye sees sweaty bottles of beer, neon signs, and dartboards, all soundtracked by dad rock and the low rumble of bar chatter.
For a very long time, this perception would have accurately described 99 percent of the country’s sports bars, filled mostly with grown men who found a safehouse to wear the jerseys of the players they idolize. In some senses, homogeneity was the name of the game: As chains like Hooters and Beef ‘O’ Brady’s proliferated across the country, they sought to cultivate an easily replicable vibe, one that could make any piece of strip-mall real estate feel like a homey, convivial place to catch a game while enjoying a brew or two and a basket of Buffalo wings.
But sports-watching has evolved, and these old-school bars are starting to feel like stodgy relics of an irrelevant lifestyle, especially as alcohol consumption declines across the board and fewer bars have the need for TVs with patrons glued to their iPhones and Androids. More and more fans are choosing to watch the biggest games in sports in the comfort of their own (or their friend’s) home, finding VPNs and other work-arounds while discovering streams to out-of-market games once only available at bars. The problematic rise of third-party food delivery, like DoorDash, provides another reason to stay in. But the sports bar isn’t totally dying, it’s just evolving into two distinct types of establishments that are decidedly different yet no less sports-obsessed: the women’s sports bar and the betting lounge. And though it may seem as if these two distinct types of sports bars—the women’s sports bar and the gambling lounge—exist on totally different planets, they’re products of the exact same social environment.
For a very long time, this perception would have accurately described 99 percent of the country’s sports bars, filled mostly with grown men who found a safehouse to wear the jerseys of the players they idolize. In some senses, homogeneity was the name of the game: As chains like Hooters and Beef ‘O’ Brady’s proliferated across the country, they sought to cultivate an easily replicable vibe, one that could make any piece of strip-mall real estate feel like a homey, convivial place to catch a game while enjoying a brew or two and a basket of Buffalo wings.
But sports-watching has evolved, and these old-school bars are starting to feel like stodgy relics of an irrelevant lifestyle, especially as alcohol consumption declines across the board and fewer bars have the need for TVs with patrons glued to their iPhones and Androids. More and more fans are choosing to watch the biggest games in sports in the comfort of their own (or their friend’s) home, finding VPNs and other work-arounds while discovering streams to out-of-market games once only available at bars. The problematic rise of third-party food delivery, like DoorDash, provides another reason to stay in. But the sports bar isn’t totally dying, it’s just evolving into two distinct types of establishments that are decidedly different yet no less sports-obsessed: the women’s sports bar and the betting lounge. And though it may seem as if these two distinct types of sports bars—the women’s sports bar and the gambling lounge—exist on totally different planets, they’re products of the exact same social environment.