MINNEAPOLIS — Jillian Hiscock remembers stopping by a nearby sports bar to watch the University of Minnesota Gophers Softball team play in the national tournament this past spring, only to find it wasn't showing on any of the 20+ televisions inside the bar.
"I would say it's really frustrating to be a women's sports fan anywhere and it's a really common experience to walk into a sports bar and see all men's sports on many, many, many TVs," Hiscock said. "If you're like me and you're going specifically to watch a Lynx game or a Gophers softball game, you almost always have to ask someone behind the bar, 'Hey can you change it to whatever channel this is?' And that's almost always met with frustration, annoyance, confusion — and that just gets really old."
Hiscock decided to do something about it — inspired by the recent openings of bars that show only women's sports.
In 2022, The Sports Bra in Portland became the nation's first women's sports bar. According to CNBC Make It, The Sports Bra brought in nearly $1 million in revenue in its first eight months.
Rough & Tumble in Seattle followed by the end of 2022 and then in the spring of 2023, Icarus opened in Salem, Oregon.
Now, Hiscock plans on opening Minnesota's first women's sports bar: A Bar of Their Own.
"Nothing against men's sports. I love football; I love baseball; I love all those things. And I want to be able to know that my Lynx fandom, my Minnesota Gophers women's fandom is as important as everybody else's fandom. Really right now, women sports fans feel like an afterthought in so many of the establishments, not just here but everywhere," Hiscock said.
Hiscock said they are close to locking down a location in the Twin Cities for A Bar of Their Own. While it's too early to announce, the team is looking at areas within 15 miles from Target Center and the University of Minnesota.
"We want people to know that they're going to be able walk in and see a ton of different women's sports. Probably the games they want to see and games they maybe never would've thought of watching. It's a roller derby bout — you never see those on TV. We'll have them on TV. If it's the Vixen football team, we want to have them on TV," Hiscock said.
She is currently meeting with local athletic teams at all levels. Hiscock hopes to create an inclusive, family-friendly space that will also include a restaurant.
"I was a three-sport athlete growing up and played youth softball from when I was 6 until I was 18," she said. "I love thinking about having a girls softball team sitting at the restaurant, eating their chicken fingers and watching professional softball on TV. I never had that experience. So it goes to that whole idea of, 'If you can see it, you can be it,'" Hiscock said. "A lot of people my age and older never had that experience to see that as a kid and how powerful would that be to be able to see professional athletes that look like you on TV, being celebrated, being elevated, being the focus of an event which is not an experience that many of us had."
Hiscock is hoping to open A Bar of Their Own by March 2024 in time for the Big Ten basketball tournaments, which Minneapolis will host.
Last Saturday, A Bar of Their Own launched a crowdfunding campaign, which so far, has raised more than $75,000 toward its $200,000 goal.
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