Ok, it takes a bunch of tvs to make a sports bar, but that is not all. If you are watching the standard American sports of football, baseball, golf, etc it is not so tough. Just call your cable provider or satellite company and pay a few bucks extra and you have your programming. BUT when you are trying to get World broadcasts of Rugby and Soccer games, it is not so easy. First, the time difference can be a real problem and second, receiving those broadcasts can be expensive.
MacDinton's Irish Pub in SOHO has gone the extra steps. Most Saturdays, you will see an early morning crowd of Rugby fans paying to watch live broadcast matches while sucking down Guinness for breakfast. Who watches Rugby ? Quite a few, enough to justify the expense and opening early to give the fans the games to watch. Soccer fans were delighted last year with the World Cup matches as MacDintons skillfully marketed soccer enthusiasm to a peak with a jammed bar of soccer fans in the early weekday mornings. While the next World Cup is a few years away, the enthusiasm was helped this past weekend as over 100 fans attended the USA vs Ecuador match. A perfect spring day gave way to two bus loads of fans leaving MacDintons for the match at Raymond James Stadium and returning to a two hour open bar and cook out. The USA scored in the first minute, but Ecuador came back. Then the USA scored twice within minutes of each other and the game ended with a 3 to 1 USA Victory ! Over 31,000 fans were announced as in attendance.
Yes, you have to have the tv's to make a sport bar work, but the extra steps to market soccer and rugby are being taken by the MacDinton's team. How many Rugby fans are in Tampa ? An easy answer, not many, but enough to jam a pretty large bar on a Saturday morning.
