The Caitlin Clark effect is getting an assist from bars committed to women’s sports as March Madness hustles into Final Four weekend. But reaching this point meant overcoming long odds.
A year ago, hospitality veterans Claudia Capriles and Alexandra Murray had just finished raising funds for their pop-up bar Athena Keke’s. Named after their cat and dubbed “a queer bar for women’s sports,” Athena Keke’s hosted its first Final Four at a pop-up event in a small room in the back of a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with the bar’s owners, their friends and one small television at low volume. Capriles and Murray ended up watching the tournament final at home.
It’s a completely different game this year.
After a year of pop-up events—including Gotham FC and FIFA Women’s World Cup viewing parties, post-game dance parties and a queer happy hour that included a screening of the 2006 gymnastics classic Stick It—Athena Keke’s built a network of small community groups and sports leagues and clubs that helped its events grow. It has since been featured in Vogue and by media and commerce company Togethxr in a guide of 21 bars in North America that have pledged to air the women’s tournament.
Though the price and elusiveness of adequate New York real estate means the bar still doesn’t have a permanent home, its following has grown enough that it’s holding a watch party for the NCAA women’s final at The Fulton in Brooklyn—a bar with a maximum capacity of 200.
That growth is coming just in time.
Women’s college basketball viewership is putting up historic numbers. ESPN audiences for the women’s Sweet 16 averaged 2.4 million viewers per game, up 96% from the same slate in 2023. The women’s Elite 8, meanwhile, helped ESPN reach 6.2 million viewers for each matchup, representing a 184% increase over the year before.