Ethiopia Sports Bar: Hat-Trick offers Select Sports Viewing
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Members of opposing teams are mostly forced to share the room or stadium where a given game is viewed, but Hat-trick Sports Bar, which opened on December 25, 2010, across from Yod Abyssinia in Bole Medhanialem, affords sport fans the opportunity to view their teams’ attempts apart from the opposing team’s fans.
Each of the upstairs rooms is named for the home ground of each presented team: Camp Nou for FCBarcelona (Barça) and Old Trafford for Manchester United FC, as well as Anfield for Liverpool FC and Emirates Stadium for Arsenal FC, which are both smaller than the other two rooms and not yet finished.
“These are very prominent teams and I am a huge Barça fan,†Samson Hailu, 36, the owner, told Fortune of his reason for selecting the teams.
Yet, some people complain that Liverpool is represented and not Chelsea, as the former does not have a large fan base at the moment because they are faring poorly (they were in 13th position at the time of going to press) while Chelsea is very popular, according to Samson.
Groups of friends can use the rooms to watch games, sitting together, or apart if they choose, in different rooms. As a result, the supporters of one team can be in the same room, and if they support one of these teams, they can even be in its “stadium.â€Â
“People do not want to sit in the opposition’s room when their team is playing them,†Samson said. “They would rather sit in a neutral stadium.â€Â
Football is not the only sport on offer and if people are using a room, they can watch anything they want that is being broadcast. As the term “hat trick†in sport, which means to achieve a positive feat three times, is most commonly used in cricket, when a bowler takes wickets with three consecutive balls, Samson plans to show the ICC Cricket World Cup, which starts in February, and the Indian Premier League (IPL) wherein eight of India’s local teams bash it out in Twenty20 cricket, when it starts in April.
