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- 1Dick's Sporting Goods
Dick's Sporting Goods was founded in 1948 in Binghamton, New York by Richard "Dick" Stack, who reportedly started the business at age 18 with a small bait-and-tackle shop after his grandfather gave him $300 to start a business of his own. The company grew into the largest sporting goods retailer in the United States by revenue, expanding from its original fishing and hunting equipment focus into a full-line sporting goods chain covering team sports, fitness, footwear, and outdoor recreation equipment. Dick's drew significant national attention in 2018 when it voluntarily stopped selling assault-style rifles and raised the minimum age for gun purchases at its stores to 21 following the Parkland, Florida school shooting, a policy decision that drew both praise and criticism from different segments of its customer base. Dick's Sporting Goods's combination of its founder's origin story starting the business as a teenager and its high-profile 2018 firearms policy decision has made it one of the most closely watched sporting goods chains in the country.
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0 - 2Academy Sports + Outdoors
Academy Sports + Outdoors traces its origins to 1938 in Houston, Texas, founded by Jewish immigrant Max Gochman as a small army-navy surplus store before his family grew it over the following decades into a full sporting goods and outdoor recreation retail chain. The company built a particularly strong presence across the American South and Southeast, historically concentrating its store footprint in that region rather than pursuing the more nationwide store distribution some larger competitors maintained. Academy Sports + Outdoors has remained substantially family-controlled through much of its history despite going public in 2020, and the company built a reputation for a broader, value-oriented product mix spanning sporting goods, outdoor gear, and casual apparel at generally lower price points than some specialty competitors. Academy Sports + Outdoors's combination of its origins as a small Depression-era army-navy surplus store and its sustained regional dominance across the American South has made it one of the most distinctively positioned sporting goods chains in the country.
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0 - 3REI
REI, short for Recreational Equipment Inc., was founded in 1938 in Seattle by a group of mountain climbers, including Lloyd and Mary Anderson, who wanted better access to quality ice axes and climbing equipment than what was then commercially available in the United States. The company operates as a consumer cooperative rather than a traditional publicly traded corporation, meaning customers can become lifetime members for a small one-time fee and receive an annual dividend based on their purchases, a structure that has remained central to REI's identity since its founding. REI became well known for its "Opt Outside" campaign, launched in 2015, in which the company closes all of its stores on Black Friday and pays its employees to spend the day outdoors instead, a deliberate rejection of the retail industry's biggest shopping day that generated significant national media attention. REI's combination of its founding cooperative ownership structure and its widely publicized "Opt Outside" Black Friday closure campaign has made it one of the most distinctively positioned outdoor and sporting goods retailers in the country.
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0 - 4Big 5 Sporting Goods
Big 5 Sporting Goods traces its origins to 1955, when five childhood friends who had served together in World War II opened a small Army-surplus-style store in Southern California, eventually growing it into a regional sporting goods chain concentrated primarily across the Western United States. The company built its identity around smaller-format neighborhood stores compared to the larger warehouse-style footprint of some national competitors, positioning Big 5 as a more convenient, easily accessible option for everyday sporting goods needs in the communities it served. Big 5 built a long-standing reputation for weekly print advertising circulars featuring rotating doorbuster deals, a marketing approach that became closely associated with the brand's identity as a value-focused regional sporting goods retailer. Big 5 Sporting Goods's combination of its origin story among five World War II veteran friends and its sustained smaller-format neighborhood store model has made it one of the most distinctively regional sporting goods chains in the country.
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0 - 5Bass Pro Shops
Bass Pro Shops was founded in 1972 by Johnny Morris, who began selling fishing tackle out of a corner of his father's Springfield, Missouri liquor store before growing the business into a massive outdoor recreation retail empire built around hunting, fishing, and camping equipment. The company became particularly known for its enormous flagship "megastore" locations, which function as much as tourist destinations as retail stores, often featuring massive indoor aquariums, taxidermy displays, and even indoor shooting ranges within a single store location. Bass Pro Shops acquired longtime rival Cabela's in 2017 for approximately $4 billion, combining two of the largest hunting and fishing-focused retail chains in the country under one corporate parent while continuing to operate Cabela's stores under their original branding. Bass Pro Shops's combination of its founder's origins selling tackle from a corner of a liquor store and its landmark acquisition of rival Cabela's has made it one of the most dominant outdoor and hunting-focused retail chains in the country.
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0 - 6Cabela's
Cabela's was founded in 1961 by brothers Dick and Jim Cabela, who began selling fishing lures via a small mail-order classified ad before growing the business into one of the largest hunting, fishing, and outdoor gear retailers in the country, based in rural Sidney, Nebraska. Like its later parent company Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's built a reputation for massive destination-style retail stores featuring extensive wildlife dioramas and taxidermy displays, drawing customers from far beyond typical retail trade areas specifically to experience the stores themselves. Cabela's was acquired by Bass Pro Shops in 2017 in a deal valued at approximately $4 billion, consolidating two of the largest hunting and outdoor retail brands in the United States, though Cabela's has continued operating its stores under its original distinct branding and identity. Cabela's combination of its origin as a small mail-order fishing lure business in rural Nebraska and its landmark 2017 merger with Bass Pro Shops has made it one of the most historically significant outdoor retail chains in the country.
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