Clevelanders don’t yet know if the city will be home to the next women’s professional soccer team, but that hasn’t stopped them from showing support for the sport.
The National Women’s Soccer League playoffs wrapped up last month, and fans flocked to Brewnuts in Cleveland’s Gordon Square neighborhood to watch.
The donut bakery, coffee shop and bar began hosting watch parties during the NCAA women’s basketball tournament and quickly discovered that fans were happy to fill the space until it was standing room only. Brewnuts owner Shelley Pippin used to work for the WNBA, so using her business to showcase women’s sports was a natural fit.
Pippin said she's excited to see the surge in interest around women's sports.
"Now we’re seeing the rest of the world waking up to it and being so incredibly entertained and seeing that there's so many incredible role models as well. It's really rewarding to see that finally starting to shift," she said.
Women’s sports bars began surfacing in the U.S. in 2022, when The Sports Bra opened in Portland, Oregon as the country’s first bar to only show women’s sports. CNBC reported the bar hit nearly $1 million in revenue in just eight months and has started franchising in other cities. Since then, it’s inspired a national movement of more women’s sports bars — including in Cleveland.
Ally Eclarin and Cassy Kopp recently announced plans to open Cleveland's first women's sports bar. The pair previously owned State Champs coffee shop in Downtown Kent. They sold the shop over the summer to focus their efforts on the new bar, which they're calling The W Sports Bar.
"We always had Cleveland as our North Star, and we were testing out Kent, our little incubation space, to be like, 'Hey, do people care about what we care about?' And it showed that it did. But it also showed us that we needed to be in Cleveland. Our people are in Cleveland," Eclarin said.
Planning is still in the early stages as the pair works to secure a location for the bar. They said they want to ensure it's close to Downtown Cleveland, but also that it's in a place where fans feel safe coming and going.
"We're doing our due diligence to make sure it checks all the boxes because a lot of our fans are are vulnerable groups of women or the LGBTQ community. And we want you to feel safe walking to your car," Eclarin said.
Fan feedback
Eclarin and Kopp are confident that Clevelanders will support a women's sports bar. The proof is in the support they've seen at Brewnuts' watch parties, which have created a sense of community for Cleveland's women's sports fans, Pippin said. The watch parties that started with basketball in the spring continued with soccer in the fall, and fans have continued to fill seats.
"We throw events of all kinds and you see different audiences of all kinds," Pippin said.
Spencer Barnes and Kelsey Chapman moved to Cleveland about two months ago. Though the city is still very new to them, they were quick to seek a place to watch women’s soccer, which is how they discovered the Brewnuts watch parties. The couple has been to women’s sports bars in other cities like Portland and Minneapolis, which have also built a strong community.
“You're not sitting in a bar where they're showing replays of men's sports on every TV and maybe one TV has the actual live women's game going on," Chapman said. "You're in a place where everybody's bought in and everybody's excited, and it's not just a secondary option.”
One thing that quickly stood out to Barnes and Chapman was the passion of Cleveland sports fans. Barnes said he's enjoyed learning about the history of Cleveland's teams and hopes that fans will also support future teams.
"There's a lot of hype around Cleveland sports and it doesn't end with the professional teams that are already here," he said.
Other fans at the watch party noted the importance of having a safe space to enjoy themselves. Erin Alexeff, who lives in Cleveland and has been a lifelong fan of women’s sports, said that sense of safety is empowering.
"I think we're just excited to be able to be in an environment, in a space that's made for us and we can watch in the capacity that is inclusive of our wants and needs as women," she said.
Lisa Thuer-Winkelfoos said it's as simple as celebrating women and their achievements, from the impact of Title IX to the professional athletes who paved the foundation for today's stars.
"I love celebrating women in sport. It's just so exciting to be in a space that's inclusive and kind, celebrating phenomenal women athletes," she said.
Authentically Cleveland
Other women's sports bars have set a standard for those to come, but Eclarin and Kopp emphasized their bar is going to be unmistakably, authentically Cleveland. They’re asking for community input during the planning process on everything from food menus to operating hours.
“It’s a Cleveland women's sports bar, so we want to make sure we're asking the voices of Cleveland, because we don't want it to feel like you can pick up this bar and move it to any other major city," Eclarin said.
While Cleveland awaits news on bids for professional women’s soccer and basketball teams, fans are hopeful they'll soon be supporting those teams from The W Sports Bar.
"I think it's not only the right time and the right place for it, I think that there's the right energy, the community energy for it," said Gina Prodan Kelly, content director for Cleveland Pro Soccer, which submitted the bid to bring an NWSL team to Cleveland. "I think that over the past year, we've seen and felt how much excitement and financial and emotional investment there is for women's sports in Northeast Ohio."
Jessica Berman, commissioner of the NWSL, recently announced that Cleveland, Cincinnati and Denver are the three finalists to earn the league's 16th team. A decision is expected by the end of the year, she said.
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Rock Entertainment Group also recently announced plans to bid for a WNBA expansion team in Cleveland.
In the meantime, Eclarin and Kopp said they've been happy to give Cleveland fans some good news with the announcement of their bar, especially in a shifting political climate that has some fearful about the future.
“Right now is like the time that people need hope and they need a safe space to be," Kopp said.
