Once co-captains of their college rugby team, Nora McConnell-Johnson and Torra Spillane are now working to open Babe’s Sports Bar in Logan Square, where people will be able to watch women’s sports next spring.
The business partners have raised more than 60% of their $75,000 fundraising goal. People can continue to donate online. Anyone who contributes $25 can receive two free drinks when the bar opens, and there are other rewards for those who donate larger amounts.
Babe’s, 3017 W. Armitage Ave., is expected to open in early spring 2025, just in time for March Madness, according to its website.
“I love sports as a venue for heartbreak, but also complete awe,” McConnell-Johnson said. “Like, getting to see such high-level play and the respect between teams and players is just such a beautiful thing. We don’t have very many spaces in our society where we get to see this high level excellence and celebrate it, especially for women who have not been taken seriously as athletes for a long time.”
The bar’s atmosphere will feel “old-school,” with elements of vintage gymnasiums. For example, the bar top will be made out of flooring that was ripped out of a ballet studio.
The bar’s name honors women’s sports trailblazer Babe Didrikson Zaharias, who competed in golf, baseball, basketball and pool in the ‘30s and ‘40s. She is the only athlete to win individual Olympic medals in separate running, throwing and jumping events.
“The way I’m envisioning the space is like, ‘What if she wasn’t an exception?’” McConnell-Johnson said. “What if she was the norm of athletes, and women like her were celebrated and able to access sports at a high level, ever since the ‘30s and ‘40s? It feels like a futurist project.”
Longtime friends McConnell-Johnson and Spillane are working with the women-owned design firm, Siren Betty, to create a concept for the space that’s inclusive, accessible and centers women. Many bars’ counters and stools are taller to accommodate men, but the one at Babe’s Sports Bar will be slightly shorter and built specifically with women in mind.
They’re also working with Clean Air Club, a group that helps venues improve indoor air quality, to ensure the bar has a good air filtration system to protect people from spreading COVID-19 and other illnesses.
“I really believe that doing right by people is the best way to go,” McConnell-Johnson explained. “We really want to create a beautiful space that’s also accessible.”
A lifelong fan of sports of all kinds, McConnell-Johnson has often thought about how hard it is to find places to watch women’s sports in bars with other people, so she wanted to create a space where people can come together to celebrate women’s athletics.
Whiskeygirl Tavern, a lesbian-owned bar in Edgewater, is also known as a haven for women’s sports fans. McConnell-Johnson loves spending time there and said she’s gone to the owners for advice throughout the process of creating Babe’s.
“It’s very exciting [that] we already do have such a cool space to work off in Chicago, and I love that they are so supportive,” McConnell-Johnson said.
When McConnell-Johnson was in high school, she was the captain of an all-boys soccer team, and it gave her insight into what it feels like to be a woman athlete in a male-dominated space, which some men found threatening.
“I realized how hard it is to find women’s sports on TV and in bars, which really aligns with my experience throughout my life as a woman athlete,” McConnell-Johnson said. “We have these structural issues stacked against us that impede our ability to really be full athletes and just focus on the sport itself.”
Prior to this project, McConnell-Johnson spent most of her career as an educator, and previously taught middle school students. She said her classroom felt pretty similar to a rowdy bar at times.
“It’s a big pivot, but it doesn’t feel like that, honestly,” McConnell-Johnson explained. “If you can get good at being a middle school teacher, you can be good at anything. It feels very aligned with how I’ve always been somebody who wants to create space for people who don’t always have a good space to be together.”
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