Pursuits

Chicago Sports Bars' Big Ten Football Hustle

Pub owners in Chicago have made an industry out of college football pride

Duffy’s Tavern & GrillePhotograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg Businessweek

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By Bryan Gruley

November 8, 2013 at 2:26 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

BusinessWeek Cover Image (13_46, 1600x2398)

This article is part of the November 11, 2013 issue of businessweek.

Andrea Abel is celebrating her 30th birthday at Chicago’s Kirkwood Bar & Grill with more than 200 friends. She doesn’t know them all by name, but no matter: Like Abel, they’re all there to root for their beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers. “For the last five years, I’ve been watching all the football games here,” says Abel, a 2006 graduate in a black-and-red Husker T-shirt and red-and-white beads.

Kirkwood, which most days feels like any North Side yuppie haven with high-top tables and fish tacos, is one of a growing number of Chicago bars identifying with Big Ten sports teams. Most bar owners aren’t fans (establishments often switch school allegiances from season to season)—they’re just trying to lure the twentysomething college football nuts who move to the city seeking jobs, spouses, and hangovers.