SEATTLE — Sports bring people together, but being able to watch women’s sports in group settings, like bars and restaurants, is uncommon.
“I can't say the amount of times I've been to sports bars where I'm like ‘There's a huge like championship women's sports game, why do we have this random men's football rerun?” said Casey Cairo, a sports fan.
However, this struggle with trying to find places to watch women’s sports on TV has now changed in Western Washington. Rough and Tumble Pub opened on Dec. 10th in Ballard. The owner said it is the first women’s sports pub in Washington and the second worldwide.
“It's emotional. you know” said Jen Barnes, the owner of Rough and Tumble. “I have welled up with tears and if I think about it too hard, I'll probably start crying.”
The first two days after opening, the pub was completely full, and even had visitors from local women's pro teams, like the Seattle Storm.
The pub is decorated with women’s sports memorabilia and has 18 televisions. The goal of the pub is to prioritize women’s sports on their TVs, giving people a place to come together to enjoy and support women’s sports teams.
Barnes said they will air all sorts of women’s games, especially focusing on OL Reign, the Storm, and local women’s collegiate sports teams. Barnes said that women’s sports games need to be easier to access. She said this is important for both the fans and the athletes.
"This is what we deserve, we deserve equality,” said Barnes.
Others at the pub watching the men's FIFA World Cup on Saturday agreed that this space is needed.
“Seattle's just due for a place like this,” said Stevie Jones, a sports fan at the pub. “It's so hard to find places to watch women's sports.”
Fans said this kind of pub will increase the visibility of women’s sports teams and grow support.
“With the success that our women's sports teams have here in Seattle, it's going to be contagious,” said Jones.
“In a lot of restaurants and places where they showcase sports, usually it's mostly like men's soccer, men's basketball, baseball, football. They don't show a lot of women's sports. So, I think that they're underrepresented,” said Davis Glass Hastings, a young man from Seattle in attendance with his parents, brother, and grandmother.
Hastings also appreciates that Rough and Tumble is a place for families too.
“It’s sort of a pub, but it's open to all ages, which I love. It's very inclusive,” said Glass Hastings.
“To be able to come to a place like this and be surrounded by other people who enjoy the same things and celebrate women's sports together is really, really cool,” said Jones.