A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Lesbian bars are making a post-pandemic comeback with a little help from women's sports fans. In Nashville, construction is underway on the first lesbian bar in the South dedicated to women's sports. Here's Marianna Bacallao, of member station WPLN.
MARIANNA BACALLAO, BYLINE: It's a big moment for The Lipstick Lounge. The two-story purple building the bar calls home is expanding with Chapstick Sports Lounge. At a groundbreaking to mark the occasion, Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell joined the bar's owners in donning a hard hat and taking up a golden shovel.
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FREDDIE OCONNELL: But it's great to know that as we celebrate the arrival, in a real way, of women's sports, as our daughters become athletes, as they look at role models, that we get to have a place in Nashville that will be a sports bar for humans.
BACALLAO: Longtime Lipstick patron Emily Davis agrees.
EMILY DAVIS: I'm a huge women's sports fan. I played sports in college, and I think that, you know, one of the most special parts about the space here is that we've always come together and watched games. Can't open soon enough, in my opinion, but I know they have to build the building, so I'm waiting.
BACALLAO: Christa Suppan, co-owner of The Lipstick Lounge, says she's always wanted to dedicate a space to women's sports.
CHRISTA SUPPAN: It was just never quite the right time. There was never enough money. There was never enough of anything.
BACALLAO: That had been especially true during 2020. A tornado ripped the bar's roof off, and a few weeks later, COVID shut it down entirely. During the pandemic, Lipstick survived on Paycheck Protection Program loans, and equity Suppan had amassed from owning the property outright.
SUPPAN: 'Cause if we didn't have that building, then we wouldn't still be open. We couldn't pay, you know, $15,000-20,000 a month in rent. It gives you security. It gives you something to leverage.
BACALLAO: That leverage came to the tune of a $1.5 million bank loan, which will support the new women's sports bar. The expansion comes at a rare moment for both women's sports and lesbian bars. The number of lesbian bars in the country had shrunk from nearly 200 during the '80s to less than 20 during the pandemic. Now, that number is rebounding.
ERICA ROSE: From 2021 to now, we've seen an enormous growth of lesbian queer bars across the country and world.
BACALLAO: That's Erica Rose, co-founder of the Lesbian Bar Project, which tracks the number of lesbian bars in the country. She puts the current tally at 32. Several of those openings focus on women's sports. Nashville will join other cities like Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis in giving women's sports fans a dedicated place to watch. Rose says nationwide, Lipstick is an outlier. Lesbian bars are more successful in the North.
ROSE: Certain cities are economically more privileged. There's more opportunity, and you'll generally find more allies able to patronize your bars, because at the end of the day, these bars, in order to survive, need allies to come and support.
BACALLAO: For Lipstick, support from the community, both queer and not, has buoyed business. After more than 20 years, Suppan finally got her first paycheck as an owner a year-and-a-half ago.
SUPPAN: It's the allies. It's the people behind - who are rooting for you behind closed doors. It's the people you don't know that are on your side that are making such tremendous impacts.
BACALLAO: Lipstick has another industry trend in its favor - the women's sports industry is having its own moment. Its viewership has quadrupled according to a study by sports marketing firm Wasserman. Shelly Pisarra, who led that research team, says that's largely thanks to streaming.
SHELLY PISARRA: The growth in new platforms - social, digital, streaming - far outpaced what was happening in men's sports.
BACALLAO: Fans of women's sports tend to be more loyal, too.
PISARRA: And we know these fans will work really hard to see women's sports. They've had to work hard forever.
BACALLAO: Lesbian bars that cater to women's sports have seen that loyalty in action. The Sports Bra in Portland was the first on the scene in 2022. Its owner tells CNBC she made $1 million in just eight months of business. But these sports bars face unique challenges. Even as viewership grows, women's sports still account for less than 5% of the games on TV. Bar owners have to get creative about scheduling, sometimes running replays or playing dead air to prove a point.
SUPPAN: I don't think anybody knows how hard it is to own a small business.
BACALLAO: That's Chapstick co-owner Christa Suppan.
SUPPAN: It is so much work, and so much time, and so much energy, and I have so much gratitude that we even have this opportunity.
BACALLAO: Chapstick Sports Lounge will open next year, Suppan hopes - just in time for Super Bowl Sunday. For NPR News, I'm Marianna Bacallao, in Nashville. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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