Bar chain Bar Sport aims for 100 sites

Franchised bar operator Bar Sport has unveiled plans for rapid expansion to take it from four sites to 100 in the next five years.

Bar Sport aims to establish itself with franchisees in smaller towns across the country, offering fare to customers who “love watching sport, like drinking and eating burgers”, said founder and managing director, Scott Murray.

Franchisees who buy into the concept will have to find a freehold property, as Bar Sport looks to avoid the beer ties made on tenanted and leased pubs and bars.

“No one is offering franchises [to the on-trade], it is all tenanted. We do not want to be renting tired leases. We want to stay well clear of them.”

Murray also defended the performance of the sports-orientated bar after rival chain Sports Cafe entered administration in January blaming falling levels of consumer spending and a lack of televised sport in 2007.

Meanwhile Regent Inns, which owns the sports orientated Walkabout, has admitted its sales had fallen by 10.9% this year.

“Regent Inns and Sports Cafe are not 100% about sport. You would go in and the volumes on the TV would be muted. We are serious about sport. We are not glorified night-clubs,” Murray told Caterersearch.

Existing Bar Sport sites have 24 hour licences to cover early morning sporting events such as boxing. It currently operates four sites in Cannock, Walsall, Rugby and Loughborough.

Sports Cafe rescued by investment firm >>

By Christopher Walton

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