Power Hitters

The nation's two largest sporting goods retailers, The Sports Authority (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and Gart Sports Co. (Englewood, Colo.) , have reached an agreement to merge. The combined company will be named The Sports Authority Inc. and headquartered in Englewood, Colo. The transaction is expected to be completed in the third calendar quarter of 2003.

The merger will produce a retailing behemoth with 385 stores in 45 states generating an estimated $2.5 billion in sales.

Following completion of the merger, Martin Hanaka, Sports Authority's chairman and ceo, will serve as chairman of the board of the combined company and John Douglas Morton, president and ceo of Gart Sports, will become vice chairman and ceo. Elliott Kerbis, president and cmo of Sports Authority, will become president and cmo of the combined company. The remainder of the management team will be comprised of executives of both Gart Sports and Sports Authority.

“This combination will better position the company in the highly competitive sporting goods retail sector,” said Hanaka. “Together, we will be the preeminent sporting goods retailer in the U.S., with capabilities and opportunities on a scale much broader than would have been possible for either Gart Sports or Sports Authority on a standalone basis. I am delighted that we will be creating a unified brand with the Sports Authority name, a name that is widely recognized and well respected by consumers across the country.”

The merger is subject to approval by both companies' stockholders and U.S. antitrust laws.

The Sports Authority is the Number One sporting goods chain in the U.S., with 205 stores, most of them over 40,000 square feet, in 33 states, generating sales in 2002 of $1.4 billion. Gart Sports is Number Two, with 180 stores in 25 states under Gart Sports, Sportmart and Oshman's nameplates. It had sales in 2002 of $936 million.