Sporting Goods Stores

In a story in today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune regarding the 80% drop in forecast sales at sporting goods retailer Gander Mountain is a note about some of their competitor's expansion plans.

Dick's Sporting Goods, which operates 234 stores, plans to add 25 in 2005. Privately held Bass Pro Shops has identified 16 locations where it plans to build stores in the next two years, according to Sporting Goods Business. And Cabela's expects to add seven stores through 2007 that each are 175,000 square feet or bigger, including a new store in Rogers, Minn.

Just FYI, on the Bass Pro Shop front, the store in Springfield, Missouri is the number one tourist attraction in the state! The store outside Atlanta was the #2 tourist site in the state of Georgia! (Number one in Georgia is Stone Mountain Park which draws in excess of five million visitors annually, to put things in perspective.) So the wow! here is they are looking at 16 more Bass Pro Shops. That will put a pinch on their competitors.