Photo illustration: The Cut Photography: Sara Sorbo
It may sound silly now, but Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese A few years ago, the notion that “no one watches women’s sports” was often heard. In April 2022, former chef Jenny Nguyen challenged this notion, Sports Brais a women’s sports bar in Portland, Oregon. It wasn’t easy. After being turned down for a business loan from banks and small business associations, Nguyen opened with her own savings, a Kickstarter campaign, and loans from friends and family. “When I opened, everyone was like, ‘Give me two months,'” Nguyen says. “I was skeptical that it would work.”
Today, the bar is a mecca for women’s sports. Only female athletes appear on the TVs and walls, and the mostly female clientele orders cocktails like Title IX from the menu. But the bar represents more than just sports. It’s also an oasis for the LGBTQ+ community, of which Nguyen is proud to be a part. It attracts feminists, local craft beer enthusiasts, and fans of the Vietnamese claypot-style pork ribs that pay homage to Nguyen’s roots.
The success of the sports bra has paralleled the growing focus on women’s sport, with Deloitte Exceeding Predictions The first $1 billion revenue is expected to hit $1 billion in 2024. a million The company generated $1 million in revenue in its first eight months and quickly attracted big names in sports, including former WNBA star Sue Bird and ESPN commentator Carolyn Peck. Alexis Ohanian The 776 Foundation, which Nguyen calls “Bra,” Opening a franchise store Nguyen currently lives in Vancouver, Washington, and donates her donations across the United States to help develop the next generation of female athletes.
On the rise of women’s sports:
Coming out of the pandemic, there was a lot of upheaval in women’s sports, with a lot of questions being asked about bras. But we were already starting to see change. For me, it started with the U.S. Women’s National Team winning the fight for equal pay. And before that, Sedona Prince’s NCAA video went viral. So we started to see some change, and then the bra opening. I remember we had a hard time finding content to show on TV. Now, two years later, we don’t have enough TVs. There aren’t enough hours in the day to show all the women’s sports that are available. I know it’s our role to be a part of that. We’re not only living it, we’re witnessing it, but the fact that we exist is helping to increase the number of women’s sports fans.
Her typical morning looks like this:
I usually wake up around 7:30 or 8:00, lie in bed for an hour, catch up on sports news highlights — I subscribe to quite a few newsletters, including one about women’s sports, so I get a lot of my news from there — and then I get out of bed around 9:00. Usually, my girlfriend or I make coffee, and then we go for a morning walk.
On her calming ritual:
If I can take a walk in the morning and evening, everything seems to go smoothly. I’m a birdwatcher. Going outside and seeing and hearing birds reminds me of our insignificance in the universe. Whether we succeed, fail, or die, nature will continue, and the Earth will continue. For some people, this is a really depressing thought, but for me it’s the opposite. I feel free when I think about how insignificant everything that happens to me personally is in the grand scheme of things.
Typical work week:
I don’t go to Bra every day. I’m there maybe two or three days a week. They don’t need me there anymore, but I just like being in that space. I have a to-do checklist that I always carry with me, and every day I add to it and check it off. So I check the checklist, then I send a bunch of emails, I have interviews, I have Zoom meetings. That pretty much wraps up my day.
On learning how to relax:
As life gets busier, more hectic and unpredictable, I find ways to have even a little bit of “me time.” Before, when I took a vacation, it would take me a whole day to relax. But now I’m much more efficient with that time and I take 15-minute breaks to relax, reset and see how I feel. Maybe I’ll get up and take a walk outside or go upstairs if I’m in my bra. My office is downstairs, so I’ll chat with some customers or talk to the servers. Listening to other people’s stories is a great way to recharge and rejuvenate.
On her evening routine:
These days, I just need a hot shower, some tea, and Bridgerton!
On ambition:
My parents would yell at me for saying this, but I was a career person with no ambition or motivation. As for the kitchen job, I liked it while I was doing it, but I had no motivation. When the bra was launched, it created a whole different perspective on what was possible for me. I have never dreamed so big in my life, and it’s really scary. It’s miraculous to think how much I’ve learned and accomplished in the last two years. If you were to talk to a 40-year-old Jenny in 2020 and ask me, “Can you imagine doing X, Y, Z?” I would say, “Absolutely not.” At the time, I had been unemployed for five years, and going from being unemployed to where I am now is pretty dramatic. But I think it was always in me.
Regarding business expansion:
Alexis reached out to me on Twitter early last year. He just said, “Let me know when you’re ready to get bigger or expand.” I don’t do much Twitter, so I got a text from a friend. It was just a screenshot of a tweet attached. I was like, “That’s fake.” I didn’t reply for two whole days. Then I casually sent him a direct message saying, “Thanks for reaching out. Here’s my email address if you ever want to reach out.” He emailed me back maybe two or three hours later.
Every month, he would reach out and always end with, “There’s no rush. Whenever you’re ready.” That meant a lot to me. This wasn’t a flash in the pan. I knew his history of investing in women’s sports. Honestly, I wasn’t even looking at investors, but partnering with 776 and Alexis would be great for the brand and the network connections. It took months to make the decision to franchise, but there was a general feeling that it was going to happen. It was just a matter of when.
On creating a safe space:
I opened Sports Bra with women’s sports as the biggest focus. The purpose was to elevate, promote and support women’s sports and give people a place to come and celebrate. Then, little by little, I started adding things based on my own experiences. As a chef, I knew that women working in the food and beverage industry were often overlooked. As I wrote the menu and filled out the tap list, I thought to myself, “I want to be a part of that.” How many women are making beer? It turns out there are hundreds of women making beer in Portland.
As a queer person, the thing that always bothers me is when I get kicked out of the women’s restroom, or I have to bring my girlfriend, who has long hair and is obviously cisgender, or I get talked down to. So it was important to me to turn it into a gender-neutral restroom, because I wanted to feel comfortable and I thought other people could feel comfortable too. And then, of course, we’re going to have Pride flags and Black Lives Matter flags. We’re also going to have art that says, “Protect Trans Kids.” That was my way of creating a space where I felt comfortable and where people from all walks of life could come and feel seen and represented.
On dealing with imposter syndrome:
sometimes, Am I competent enough to do this? But especially in the next phase of building the franchise, there is this recognition that I was the one who built Bra from the ground up. I had an entire team help me with that and to say I didn’t deserve it or that it wasn’t me but other people would be a disservice to my efforts.
It took me a long time to be able to say that I was proud of myself. Maybe it’s because of Asian culture, or maybe it’s because of American culture, that women aren’t allowed to be proud or confident. It’s considered vain, conceited, or arrogant. Someone said it better: “The whole world is always trying to tarnish the shine of others, so don’t be the one to let it be you. If you do something great, own it.”
