The Sports Bra, a Portland destination that made history as the first women’s sports bar in the world, has announced plans to franchise and expand into other cities.

Investment from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian — the husband of tennis legend Serena Williams — will fund the effort in partnership with Ohanian’s 776 Foundation. All returns from the investment will be used to fund girls’ and women’s sports via the foundation, the Sports Bra wrote in a post on Instagram.

“You look at all these sports now, there is undeniable excellence coming from women,” Ohanian said in a video posted on his Instagram account. “I’m just looking for all the ways we can reinforce and build and do it in a way that makes sense with the community. Every bar I ever walked into was only showing exclusively men’s sports. Random people are just gonna stumble in. Y’all in two years have already done that here, and you think of how that starts to spread.”

Owner Jenny Nguyen opened The Sports Bra in Portland in 2022, and the business thrived in a city and state that has consistently showcased strong support for women’s sports. “The Bra” received widespread national media coverage, and continued to fill its space (and others) for watch parties and events, drawing the attention of U.S. senators and sports league commissioners along the way.

“When I first opened The Sports Bra two years ago this month, I had no idea the impact it would have on so many so quickly,” Nguyen said in a press release. “Now I can see we’re just getting started. With the support of Alexis and 776, we plan to bring The Bra to cities across the country and beyond, and continue to invest in our mission.”

The popularity of women’s professional sports has seen a significant national uptick thanks, in part, to the emerging stardom of athletes like Sophia Smith, Caitlin Clark and others. The 2024 NCAA women’s basketball championship game between Iowa and South Carolina averaged 18.7 million viewers — four million more than the men’s championship and among the most-viewed sporting events of the past year, college or professional.