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Women’s Sports Bars popping up and showing success

Rhea

Cyborg with a Tiara
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Fun reading this article that shows the pent-up demand for ways to view and enjoy women’s sports. And I love the fact that others are repeating her model in different cities. I wonder if there’s one near me?

 
Every bar has atmosphere. I go for the atmosphere and the banter, who's serving, the drinks, the food, and honestly rarely know what's on the screens.
 
I have often found women's sport to be more entertaining to watch, as the players tend to depend more on skill and ability, and less on sheer physical strength, to dominate play.

That's certainly true of Association Football and Australian Rules Football, where physical strength is already subordinated to other skills by the rules of the game; Rugby Football, particularly Union, tends to be more about strength in both men's and women's competitions, so the differences (from the perspective of a spectator) are less stark, but they are still noticeable.

There's been a noticeable trend in Australia in the last decade or so towards more broadcasting of women's sport, and the amount of money being made available seems to be increasing too (likely because the increasing amount of screen time is enabling teams to attract more sponsorship dollars).

It probably helps that Australians are, as a nation, sports mad, and the female fans have always been more equally represented here than in other countries; Female footy fans are certainly far more visible here than in the UK, and Australian stadium crowds have been very much family oriented for as long as I have been here.

When I arrived from England in the 1990s, it was a noticeable and refreshing change from the very blokey atmosphere in English crowds. Elland Road was very much the preserve of fathers and sons, while Lang Park crowds included a lot more mothers and daughters.
 
NCAA women's basketball tournament this year had the highest ratings ever, and I'm pretty sure the women's final had a higher viewership than the men's. I'm in Iowa, so I'm a bit partial to Caitlin Clark, but she gets a lot of the credit for the rise in popularity of the women's game. The praise she gets is well deserved. Watch her on YouTube. Her court skills are really otherworldly.
 
NCAA women's basketball tournament this year had the highest ratings ever, and I'm pretty sure the women's final had a higher viewership than the men's.
The women's game had over 100% more viewers than last year's, and the men's game had the fewest in decades, but the men's game still had millions more viewers (14.7 vs. 9.9 million).

This was a very unusual year on the men's side, with the top 12 teams all knocked out before the championship game. #13 vs. #17 isn't "must see TV".
 
Bilby
I spent (wasted?) about 2 hours last night at a pub (good food though) in Melbourne watching the 3rd (and final) match of the State-of-Origin. It has been a awful long time since I watched so much Rugby League and now I remember why. Work dinner with some sand gropers, a frog lady and some Kiwis.
Such a culture shock.
The brawl at the 30min mark was the highlight of the 1st half IMHO.
I was hoping for a good dakking or a streaker to enliven the game. Glad the Blues won. The Maroons needed a good thrashing (Cocky lot).

I'll stick with AFL or soccer.
 
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