Bitter Fans Bite Profits Major-League Strikes, Losses By Local Favorites, Competition Combine To Cut Sports Bar Viewing

Owning a sports bar or tavern isn’t as glamorous as Ted Danson may have made it appear while portraying the character Sam Malone on “Cheers.”

Consider what life has been like this past year for Spokane establishments.

Sandwiched between the Seattle SuperSonics’ first-round playoff face-plants of 1993 and 1994 were the Major League Baseball and National Hockey League players’ strikes.

For Steve Watkins, the owner of Fuzzy’s Sports Buzz in the Valley, it was not a good time.

“I’m probably the only person that opened a sports bar in the middle of two professional strikes,” he said. “It was a killer. I figured the strikes cost us about $10,000.”

Although Fuzzy’s wasn’t open for the Sonics’ first flop, it was for the second.

“When they got beat by the Lakers this year, the night they lost, we had 43 people in here. Two minutes after the game ended, there was nobody around,” Watkins said.

The following night, the eventual NBA champion Houston Rockets dumped Spokane native John Stockton and the Utah Jazz on their heads in the first round of the playoffs, as well. Watkins wondered what he had gotten into.

Disappointing performances by local favorites, work-stoppages, professional owners threatening to move franchises and a parade of multi-million dollar prima donnas have all left bitter tastes in the mouths of many sports fans.

Attendance and television viewership is down in baseball while the NHL struggles to regain the momentum it had last year in what was probably its most successful season.

“You’re always going to get your diehards,” Brian Finnerty, co-owner of Finnerty’s Red Lion Sports Bar & Barbecue said. “But with everything going on in the world of pro sports, we have certainly felt the effects. We’re in a bit of a lull.”

Jack & Dan’s hadn’t counted on the Jazz losing in the playoffs so early.

“This past basketball season was great for us because John set the NBA assist record, and it finally looked like Utah had a chance at going to the finals before the Rockets got in the way,” said Jeff Condill, who co-owns the bar with Stockton’s father, Jack.

The biggest basketball draws for most bars and taverns are the NBA playoffs and the NCAA Tournament while college and pro football tend to be the most viewed sports. However, football occupies less than half a calendar year.

Like Fuzzy’s, many establishments suffered financial losses due to fan displeasure. Tom Finnerty said bar business was down 25 percent, making it tougher to pay the bills on the $35,000 the Finnertys have invested in satellite dishes, receivers and televisions.

So with the unpredictable nature of pro sports being what it is, those in the local sports bar business have been forced to market themselves as being more than just a place where one can watch games.

Double Dan’s sports tavern has the advantage of being located downtown in addition to having an extensive lunch and dinner menu.

“Our lunchtime crowds are great,” Dan Jeremiah Jr., co-owner of Double Dan’s, said. “We can do more than be a sports tavern.”

Under Washington State law, taverns can’t sell hard liquor or admit children.

“I get a lot of teenagers who come in here with friends and order food just to watch games,” he said. “There’s a definite distinction between being a bar compared to being a tavern.”

Maybe the most complete non-sports sports bar in the area is The Swinging Doors Tavern.

Bob Materne, who co-owns the tavern with his wife Barb, also has daughters Lisa, Yvette and Nicole assisting in the business.

And with four women involved in running The Swinging Doors, the Maternes have attempted to create an atmosphere in which women can feel comfortable watching a sporting event.

“We don’t offer the cheap thrills,” Bob said. “We have a very quality product. Forty-five percent of our business is generated by the restaurant. It’s not a pickup bar. We keep the place nice and clean.”

While sports bars tend to come and go, The Swinging Doors has been in business for 12 years.

The tavern has five satellites, 12 televisions - three of which are 50-inch big screens - and unlike any other sports bar in town, the Maternes have shown every NFL game played on Sunday in the past two years.

But even while advertising themselves as sports bars, these establishments are trying to offer more to patrons than just sports.

The Swinging Doors is open 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays and serves breakfast in the early morning hours.”It’s nothing to come in here at 1:30 in the morning to see 50 to 60 people in the place having breakfast,” Materne said.

The bars and taverns in the downtown area are also hoping to attract crowds from events at the new Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena.

“I think that will be a bonus for everybody,” Finnerty said. “Live music, the (Spokane) Chiefs, with the potential to bring more preseason NBA and NHL to town - that’s more for everyone to tap into.”

At Fuzzy’s, Watkins produces activities within the establishment for its clientele through shuffleboard, pool and dart leagues.

“Even with baseball back, the viewing interest doesn’t pick up until closer to the playoffs,” he said.

At T.W. Fisher’s - A Brewpub in Coeur d’Alene, owner Thomas Wayne Fisher offers golfers the chance to work on their putting.

But the big excitement in the next couple of weeks will be the bar’s “Bung Toss Competition.”

“It’s the wood plug that fits in the side of the keg,” Fisher said. “Contestants will line up and take turns tossing the bung in a bucket.”

In the sports bar business, you do what you can to make a bung, er, buck.

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