Watching a match in Pattaya, which is a different sport
The first thing to know is the time. Pattaya is seven hours ahead of London in the winter and six in the summer, so a Saturday three o'clock kick-off is ten at night here, an evening kick-off is two in the morning, and the NFL is breakfast. The sports bars on this list are open for the games that matter, which means some of them are open at three in the morning on a Sunday with a full house and a kitchen going, and nowhere else in the city is. The hours in each entry are Google's; the late ones are the ones that take the sport seriously.
The second thing is the sound. A sports bar here is a room with a lot of screens and one of them with the commentary on, and the one with the sound is the one with the game the owner cares about. The Sports Hub and I-Rovers are the rooms where the big game is on every screen with the sound up and the crowd is there for it. Witherspoons and Hemingways are the rooms with a kitchen where the match is on and the sound depends on who asked. Buttercups, on our soi, is the small one with the regulars who know the fixtures.
The third is the crowd. British for the football, Australian for the rugby and the AFL, Irish for both, American for the NFL at breakfast, and Thai for the Muay Thai on a Sunday night, which is the one sport where the sound is always on. A big match brings a queue and a bar that did not know it was a sports bar until the World Cup. The rooms on this list are the ones where the match is the point every week.
The match with the sound off, at our counter
The screens above our counter carry the football, the rugby and the fights every night, and the sound is off, because three metres to the left there is a band and the band wins. This makes us a poor sports bar and a good place to know the score. The way the regulars use it: the first half at a sports bar with the sound on, a walk or a baht bus to Soi Diana, and the second half on our screens with the band in front and the goals watched between songs. On a Saturday night the match at ten is the one the Thursday table keeps half an eye on.
When the band takes a break, the screens are what everybody looks at, and for fifteen minutes the counter is a sports bar with the sound still off. On Monday, when the DJ has the stage, the sound is still off, because that is what the screens are for here. If the match matters to you, go to one of the ten rooms above. If the band matters more and the score matters some, the counter is the seat, and it is the one seat in the building where you can see both.
The ranking above is Google's rating weighted by review count, the rule stated so it can be argued with, and the distance from our door is in every entry. The Sports Hub is the one to walk to on a big night. Buttercups is the one to walk to on a normal one, because it is on our soi and the walk is a minute.
