Kilroy’s Sports Bar ranked 39th in nation

Kilroy’s Sports Bar has once again been named one of the top 40 best bars in the country by Nightclub & Bar magazine.

This year, Kilroy’s Sports Bar placed 39th, which was a slight drop from last year’s 36th position.

IU alumna and CEO of the Kilroy’s franchise Linda Prall said she feels this is still a great accomplishment, considering Sports was under construction for three months in 2009.

“Sports was almost shutdown,” Prall said. “During the remodeling, we probably only did a half to a third of our typical business.”

Sports was ranked the highest of any bar in Indiana and was one of only six bars in the Midwest to place in the top 50. Piere’s in Fort Wayne ranked 56th and was the only other bar in Indiana to make the list.

On an average Saturday, Sports brings in about 2,500 people, Prall said. This number tends to be more than 3,000 if IU has a home football game.

Last year, more than 200,000 people visited Sports, which brought the bar more than $4 million in gross, Prall estimated.

Prall said she believes the Bloomington community plays a factor in their success. Bloomington’s bars and restaurants tend to help each other out, Prall said.

“We’re all very close. Nick’s (English Hut) might even run over and say, ‘Oh my god, do you have a case of ketchup?’ and we’ll give it to them,” Prall said. “We all work well together.”

The fact that the staff at Sports doesn’t focus on their local competitors helps them succeed, Prall said.

“We don’t compete with the bars in town. We compete with ourselves,” Prall said. “We always want to beat last year.”

Some Kilroy’s staff members have their own theories on why Sports has done so well through the years.

Bartender Steve McPherson said he believes the building’s size plays a major part in Sports’ success.

“The huge capacity is out of control, and when it’s wall-to-wall, it gets crazy,” McPherson said.

IU graduate and Sports Manager Paul Miller said he thinks celebrity appearances make the bar unique.

“It’s really cool seeing all the big names,” Miller said. “Tracy Porter used to come here, Ryan Howard was here a few months ago. Once, Mark Cuban bought everyone at the bar a drink.”

Sports tries to cater to a large variety of people, Miller said, but students definitely play a major part in the bar’s success.

“Our bread and butter is always the students. They’re the ones that come out 1,000 strong,” Miller said. “If we were just relying on non-students, we couldn’t be this big.”

In order to keep pushing the limits of the Kilroy’s franchise, Prall sends members of her staff outside of Indiana to see what works in other parts of the country.

“We try to see what the trends are before they ever make it out here,” she said. “What are you going to learn from an average bar in the Midwest?”