Study Points To Clear Winners From Sports Authority Shutdown

Which retailers may be the biggest beneficiaries of the recently announced closing of more than 400 Sports Authority stores?

A study from research firm NinthDecimal took a look at which retailers may be the biggest beneficiaries of the recently announced closing of more than 400 Sports Authority stores. According to Adweek, Walmart and Big 5 Sporting Goods appear to have the most to gain. 

"Big 5 and Walmart can use physical-world data to take advantage of this opportunity in several ways—understanding locations where there was a heavy overlap in customers, understanding where Sports Authority was dominating the share of foot traffic, and knowing how Sports Authority customers look and act in comparison to their own," says Lindsey DiGiorgio, NinthDecimal’s VP of marketing.  

NinthDecimal has tracked shopping patterns of 135 million consumers, and draws its assumptions from in-store foot traffic. Sports Authority shoppers visited Walmart 6.9 times more than other big box retailers, and headed to Big 5 stores 5.8 times more than other sports specialty retailers. 

"If competitors look at those three things and target integrated marketing campaigns and creative accordingly, there are a lot of customers to gain, and this is just time for the peak, back-to-school shopping frenzy," she says. 

Target comes in second among big box retailers with the most to gain, while Dick’s Sporting Goods also stands to benefit from the demise of Sports Authority. Dick’s won the right to lease 31 Sports Authority locations, as well as the rights to the company’s intellectual property.



"I think we were surprised to see such a big overlap between big box retailers and Sports Authority. If you can get what you need at a big box retailer, there's no reason to go to a specialty store. It signals an opportunity for big box retailers to expand their offerings of workout clothes, sporting equipment and basic gear kids will need to play on their school teams," she added. 

NinthDecimal arrived at its findings via its proprietary Location Conversion Index, which aims to translate how well online campaigns lead to offline sales. The company has partnerships with numerous companies to enable it to pull the data necessary to power the technology. 

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