Olympia Sports Closing Down 76 Stores Across the US: Reports

Retailer Olympia Sports announced it would close 76 stores nationwide, including a number of stores across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Google Street View

Retailer Olympia Sports announced it would close 76 stores nationwide, including a number of stores across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Olympia Sports was recently sold to the firm JackRabbit, and it will continue to operate 75 other stores under the Olympia Sports brand, according to a press release. The 76 stores that are to shutter were not part of the acquisition.

Olympia Sports, based in Maine, said that it has chosen Capital Partners LLC to assist with the closings, NewsCenterMaine reported.

The opened its first store in 1975 at The Maine Mall in South Portland before growing to 200 locations across the country, with stores in the Northeast, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic regions, it said.

“The ‘Store Closing’ sale starts Friday, November 1, and includes $44,000,000 of inventory from the top brands in athletic footwear and apparel. Storewide discounts will be offered on all Men’s, Women’s and Kids’ sneakers, running shoes, basketball shoes, boots, joggers, sweatpants, hoodies, sweatshirts, long and short sleeved t-shirts, coats, socks, hats, and much more,” the news release stated.

Locations will shutter in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, the news release said.

A local shopper in Springfield, Massachusetts, told WWLP that “it is sad” that the chain is closing. “I used to work retail and obviously, I have friends who still work in retail and they can’t work at the stores anymore, but it’s just the way the technology is going,” she said, according to WWLP.

And another person said, “I mean I grew up around here. Everything closed down. It is a little sad to see.”

The announcement to close Olympia Sports follows similar moves made by larger chains to close down locations across the United States.

A view inside a Forever 21 store in Union Square in Manhattan, New York City on Sept. 12, 2019. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Chains such as Dressbarn, Destination Maternity, Forever 21, Kitchen Collection, and others have said they will close locations by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Sears is slated to close at least 121 Sears and Kmart stores by January 2020 across the United States. Business Insider compiled a list of the stores that are closing, saying the report was compiled based on company filings and statements to local media outlets.

The news outlet said that employees at several stores confirmed the Sears is closing down.

A dismantled sign sits leaning outside a Sears department store one day after it closed as part of multiple store closures by Sears Holdings Corp in the United States in Nanuet, New York, on Jan. 7, 2019. Mike Segar/Reuters

Following the latest round of closures, there could be fewer than 300 Kmart and Sears locations around the country.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that about a fourth of the 425 Sears and Kmart stores that were brought out of bankruptcy by financier Edward Lampert have closed or are set to close. The Journal cited sources close to the situation.