
Speculation continues over Sports Authority having to close almost half of its 450 stores due to a potential bankruptcy filing. Speculation about the closures and the bankruptcy filings stem from the company's recent decision to skip a $21 million debt interest payment.
The outlook for the sporting goods retailer announced last month looked gloomier last week when two of the company's distribution centers in Denver were added to the closures. The Denver Post reported that the company slashed 100 jobs at its corporate headquarters in Englewood.
Then this week, Sports Authority, which has around 10 Houston-area locations, reported it is closing all of its 25 Texas stores.
No timeline was given for the closures in Texas.
Bloomberg News reported Feb. 4 that the retail chain was in talks with lenders, including Fort Worth-based TPG Capital Management LP, to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy ahead of a looming debt-interest payment. Bloomberg also reported the company was considering closing as many as 200 of its 450 stores under a reorganization plan.
The company has 16 locations throughout Arizona, none have announced closure but many expect most if not all to be affected in the reorganization.
At one time, Sports Authority was the largest sporting goods chain in the U.S., but it now faces heightened competition from mainstream retailers like Dick's Sporting Goods, which operates around 610 locations, as well as specialty and online merchants.
Sports Authority is currently owned by a group headed by private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners LP. In 2006, publicly traded Sports Authority agreed to a $1.3 billion buyout led by Leonard Green & Partners, which took the company private.
When Sports Authority went private in a leveraged buyout nine years ago, it was vying to be the largest sporting-goods retailer in the U.S. It isn’t any more.
What makes the struggles more surprising is that it’s in one of the few healthy areas in retail. The sector is so hot that rivals have been piling in, from Amazon.com Inc. to merchants like Target Corp. to specialty retailers including Lululemon Athletica Inc. and Gap Inc.’s Athleta.
And now there’s the reigning king, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. According to analysts, it’s been doing what Sports Authority should have been all along, expanding online and with new locations.

For the second time this year, Target is closing underperforming stores. But unlike the first round of closures, which was focused on the retailer’s flagging Canadian operations, this time the shuttered stores are all stateside. The big box retailer has confirmed that it would close 13 stores. Employees at the stores are being offered the option to transfer to another location.
The following 13 stores are being closed:
• Austin North East in Austin, TX
• Suncoast Pasco County in Odessa, FL
• Casa Grande, AZ
• Victorville, CA
• East Flint in Flint, MI
• Columbus Southwest in Columbus, OH
• Springfield, OH
• Northridge in Milwaukee, WI
• Superior, WI
• New Ulm, MN
• Ottumwa, IA
• Anderson, IN
• Dixie Highway in Louisville, KY
The U.S.-based closures come 11 months after Target announced it would shutter all 133 stores operating in Canada. The retailer said at the time that it had decided to leave our northern neighbor because there just was no way to make Target Canada profitable.