OPINION: So long Sport Chalet, you won’t be missed

Good riddance Sports Chalet. You will never stand up to your competition. (Nick Nenad/Lariat)

Being an athlete as a youngster, I often found myself touring through various sporting goods stores, looking for a new bat or maybe some cleats. My store of choice was and still is Dick’s Sporting Goods, because they are closest to my house and they are always good to me. Sports Authority and Big 5 are high on my list too, but there is one store that isn’t and now won’t be ever again.

Recently, I found out that Sport Chalet was closing its all of its stores for good and honestly, I could care less. Whether it was their boring storefront, location or lack of goods compared to the likes of Dick’s, Sport Chalet was never a place I really wanted to visit.

Occasionally, I would find myself inside the Sport Chalet, but it would never be a good experience. For example, while looking for new cleats, they would never have my size and if they did, it would cost more. I wear size 15 shoes, so buying cleats isn’t always the most simple process. Still, stores like Dick’s and Big 5 would have my size and it would be the same price. There was no reason for Sport Chalet to jack up the price, but they did anyways.

Another example of their bad service was their lack of supplies. They would never have enough bats, footballs, basketballs or athletic clothing to choose from. Other stores like Dick’s and Sports Authority have wide varieties of this stuff.

I still couldn’t help but feel bad the other day though, when I got on the internet and saw this message on Sport Chalet’s website.

“On April 16th, 2016 Sport Chalet began the process of closing all of our stores and stopped selling merchandise online. While our online store is no longer available, all Sport Chalet stores will remain open for several weeks, offering customers the opportunity to use their remaining rewards and gift cards, and to take advantage of great sales.”

It shows that Sport Chalet lost the battle with the other big sporting good stores. They fell to the pressure of having to compete with better stores that sold the exact same things as them.

It was inevitable that Sport Chalet would fold its imaginary cards. According to an article in CNN Money, “In 2014, Sport Chalet was bought by Vestis Retail Group. At the time, Sport Chalet was more than $50 million in debt.”

Other signs of their closure points to the fact that don’t have as many stores as their competition. Sport Chalet’s measly 47 stores doesn’t even compare to Dick’s 610 or Sports Authority’s 460. Sports Authority just recently closed more than 140 stores and they still have almost 1,000 percent more stores than Sport Chalet.

If you are going to sell the same things as conglomerates like Dick’s and Sports Authority, you have to be more diverse. Sport Chalet wasn’t and now they are gone. They already didn’t have my business and now they never will again. So long Sport Chalet.

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