T he day Audrey Corley stared down the barrel of a gun, her life changed. Corley grew up in west Phoenix as the youngest of four kids. Her family was supportive, raising her to be tough and unafraid to go after what she wanted. A self-proclaimed tomboy, she played baseball and basketball often as the only girl on the team. A knee injury took her away from the game. In middle school, her parents divorced and she took shifts at Burger Shoppe to help out, working upwards of 40 hours a week starting at 14. During her senior year, she was kicked out of Carl Hayden Community High School because of those absences. A vice principal told her she wouldn’t amount to anything. One day she and a friend were held up at gunpoint for their money and jewelry. In the shock of the encounter, the 18-year-old promised herself she’d get her life together. She got her GED and enrolled at Phoenix College in 1996 with two goals: to walk onto the basketball team and to study business. The stocky 5-foot-7 guard hadn’t picked up a ball in years and arrived out of playing shape. But she was determined. “I wasn’t the best athlete on that team. I was probably the least athletically inclined at that point in my life,” Corley recalls. “I showed up every day and I worked hard. It’s what I think led to everything else.” She was often late to practice, as she juggled classes and bartending jobs. On the court, that meant one thing: running extra laps. Accountability and discipline were part of how coach Cassie Sawyer led her teams. In Corley, she saw an unwavering tenacity. What the guard lacked in traditional basketball education, she made up for with a “no-quit mentality” and being “a team leader and team player” who was steady at the free-throw line, Sawyer says. Corley injured her knee four times. Each time, she weathered surgery to get back on the court. She saw every challenge as a test to make sure she really wanted what she was working toward. “Basketball saved my life,” Corley says. “It came when I needed it.” A shining moment for women’s sports More than 30 years later, the biggest headache for Corley and her business partner Kat Moore is getting their satellite provider on the horn. In the hours before welcoming family, friends and patrons to their new Melrose District bar, the co-founders of Title 9 Sports Grill are on the phone with DirecTV to ensure every women’s game they can find is playing on the 22 TVs. The pressure is on for the duo, who have created Arizona’s first women’s sports bar and restaurant. TVs matter at any sports- centric spot, but for Title 9, Corely and Moore want to be certain they have their bases covered. “When we started this, I was like ‘I don’t care about anything but the televi- sions,’” Moore says, sitting in the grill’s dining room amid chattering guests during Title 9’s opening weekend. “The extra catch is finding all those women’s games.” Their opening weekend includes Selection Sunday – the day when the 68 teams for the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are announced, kicking off March Madness. Basketball coverage is easy to find. But college base- ball, tennis and beach volleyball games are also airing. With nearly two dozen TVs, “you’re not going to miss a game here,” Corley says. But sometimes, that means they have to be “Nancy Drew” to find them, Moore notes. The pair of long-time Melrose District hospitality vets officially opened the doors on March 15. Over a celebratory weekend, notable Phoenix faces appeared including Mayor Kate Gallego and Phoenix Mercury mascot Scorch. The furry creature offers high-fives as customers walk inside following a ribbon- cutting ceremony. Corley and Moore hold a pair of oversized, baby-pink scissors. Their matching white Title 9 baseball jerseys have “Kat” and “Coach A” embla- zoned across their backs. The entrance features a wall covered in sports trophies and medals of all disci- plines, donated by customers. Near the host stand a toddler crawls into the low-slung, oversized chair in the shape of a baseball glove, a replica of one that the iconic Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson owned. Above the chair hangs a black-and-white photo of Patsy Mink, the U.S. representative credited with authoring Title IX – the grill’s namesake and landmark legislation that prohibits discrimination in education based on sex. It also laid the groundwork to create more women’s sports teams in schools. That homage to the past matters. “I’m so into the history of it,” Moore says. “I feel like it’s our duty to respect that.” More photos of iconic women — gymnast Simone Biles and the bygone Cantaloupe Queens amateur softball league — are mounted in clusters around the space. There’s an entire wall covered with a photo of Mercury legend Diana Taurasi driving to the hoop – embellished with a real basketball. A neon sign trum- pets, “Play like a girl!” That wall quickly becomes the back- drop for several photos, including with the owners. You can spot Moore by her wide smile and short, curly hair pulled back in pigtails. Corley is the gregarious bar maven with arm tattoos flashing against her crisp white jersey. Between snaps, the two are constantly in motion, flitting around the bustling dining area and patio. Well- wishers offer hugs and gifts, like a basket- ball etched with the tavern’s logo. As the deliver plates of wings and sliders, they revel in the outpouring of interest and excitement from guests. They also hear eager viewing requests – for women’s soccer, softball and rock climbing. “It’s on fire right now, and it’s overdue,” Corley says of women’s sports and spaces popping up to show those events. “Way overdue,” Moore echoes. Riding wave of interest, women’s sports bars emerge Interest in women’s sports has been gaining momentum for decades, but 2024 was a banner year. The WNBA set view- ership records. The Women’s NCAA basketball tournament final drew more viewers than the men’s. U.S. women domi- nated in Paris during the Summer Olympics, not only by outnumbering male athletes but also by raking in medals with record-breaking performances by Biles, Taurasi and swimmer Katie Ledecky. Sports historian Victoria Jackson says women’s athletics garnered waves of interest in the 1930s, the 1970s and the 1990s. But the clinical associate professor at Arizona State University believes this moment is different. No longer do a tiny handful of network execs control women’s sports program- ming. Fans can now find entire services dedicated to women’s sports, such as the All Women’s Sports Network Whoopi Goldberg launched in late 2024. “Having this infrastructure is what sustains and maintains a wave so that it’s no longer a wave — it’s the status quo,” Jackson says. Games on air is key. Sports bars dedi- cated to women’s athletics were virtually nonexistent until 2022, when the Sports Bra opened in Portland, Oregon. It was the kind of place that Corley had dreamed of. The former basketball player and coach would often show Phoenix Mercury games on the TVs at her neigh- boring concept Boycott Bar. But she knew it wasn’t the reason people came in. The draw of her Melrose lesbian hotspot – the only one left in town – is providing a place where people can dance and be themselves. Reading about the Bra, as fans call the Portland spot, got Corley’s gears turning. Since 2022, five similar concepts have opened across the country, according to X Marks the Spot, which highlights these spaces. Title 9 tunes into women’s sports movement with new bar & restaurant. >> p 19 Kat Moore and Audrey Corley owned places on Seventh Avenue for years before they teamed up to open Title 9, the first women’s sports bar in Arizona. (Allyson Stewart) BY SARA CROCKER
