10 Largest Sporting Good Companies In The World - Zippia (2024)

Walmart. Bentonville, AR, USA

Revenue in 2020: $524 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: +6.7%

Although Walmart isn’t strictly a sporting goods store, their sporting goods department brings an average of $10 billion annually, making it a serious competitor in the industry.

Walmart’s sporting goods products range from indoor and outdoor fitness products to bikes, sporting goods, camping and recreation equipment, and exercise equipment.

Walmart, formerly known as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., was founded in 1962 and has grown into a massively successful multinational retail corporation giant offering a wide variety of products and services. In 1980, Walmart became the first business to cross $1 billion in net revenue.

The present-day company is actively involved with over 100,000 distributors around the globe. It continues to be a top competitor in many industries, including electronics, music, movies, home, furniture, clothing, footwear, jewelry, toys, garden supplies, health and beauty, pet supplies, auto, party supplies, grocery, and of course, sporting goods.

Nike. Beaverton, OR, USA

Revenue in 2020: $37.4 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: -38%

Nike’s simple but easily identifiable “swoosh” logo is one of the most widely recognized brands in the world. Although best known for its footwear, its sporting goods products also include apparel, sports equipment, and recreational products.

Nike, formerly Blue Ribbon Sports, was founded in 1964. Over the decades, part of Nike’s success has come from endorsem*nts from famous athletes, including Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

In 2006, Nike leaned into the tech sphere and produced Nike+ in a team effort with Apple to monitor a runner’s performance via a radio device in the shoe that connects to the iPod or iPhone.

Nike suffered some setbacks and losses during the pandemic compared to its revenue from 2019, but even so, the sporting goods company is still a giant and continues to be a leader in the industry.

Adidas North America. Herzogenaurach, Germany

Revenue in 2020: $23.99 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: -16%

Adidas is a multinational corporation headquartered in Germany. Adidas-branded sporting goods products include shoes, apparel, equipment, and other fitness products. The company’s name is an abbreviation of the founder, Adolf “Adi” Dassler.

Adidas, originally called Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory, was officially founded in 1924. Relations between the founding brothers, Adolf and Rudolph Dassler, resulted in the company splitting into two — Ruda, later rebranded as Puma, and Adidas AG.

By the early twenty-first century, Adidas claimed the top spot as the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe and, after Nike, the second-largest in the world. Despite the losses Adidas suffered in the pandemic, the company is still a relevant and formidable global leader.

Decathlon. Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France

Revenue in 2020: $13.79 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: -8.4%

Decathlon is a French company that has dominated the world sporting goods stage and is starting to gain more traction in the US. It currently owns over 2,000 stores in fifty-six countries and five continents.

The family-owned company got its early start in 1976 in Lille, France. Decathlon prides itself on producing quality products but keeping costs lower for consumers than some of their bigger name-brand competitors.

Decathlon has even been referred to as “the IKEA of sporting goods” because it’s a fully integrated business that has cut out most middle-man costs by designing and developing its products and marketing under more than twenty different brand names.

Decathlon has gear, equipment, and apparel for a broad range of sports ranging from badminton to horseback riding, archery, kitesurfing, and your more usual recreational activities like yoga and camping.

Dick’s Sporting Goods. Coraopolis, PA, USA

Revenue in 2020: $8.75 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: +3.7%

This American sporting goods retail company is one of the nation’s largest sporting goods stores. It offers a wide variety of sports, fitness, and recreational equipment in addition to apparel and footwear.

Dick’s was founded by Richard “Dick” Stack as a fishing tackle store in 1948 with a $300 loan from his grandmother’s savings, which she kept in a cookie jar.

It grew into a Fortune 500 company and national leader in the United States from its humble beginnings. It was even the official sponsor of Team USA in the 2016 Summer Olympics and the Paralympics.

Unlike some of its competitors on this list, Dick’s Sporting Goods managed to rake in a small profit even through the unexpected trials that came with COVID-19.

Bass Pro Shops. Springfield, MO, USA

Revenue in 2020: $6.5 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: -18.8%

Bass Pro Shops is a privately held American retailer that offers hunting, fishing, camping, and other related outdoor recreation merchandise, even manufacturing boats and ATVs.

The company was founded in 1972 by Johnny Morris, and in its earliest days, it occupied eight square feet of space in the back of his father’s liquor store. Morris is a conservationist whose mission is to connect everyone with nature, earning him the reputation as “the Walt Disney of the Outdoors.”

Bass Pro Shops operates in the US and Canada, with its biggest flagship retail locations known as Outdoor World stores. The company sells equipment and offers workshops where people can learn fly fishing, archery hunting, dutch oven cooking, and other outdoor recreational activities.

Recreational Equipment (REI). Kent, WA, USA

Revenue in 2020: $2.75 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: -11.8%

REI is organized as a consumer’s co-operative and sells camping gear, sporting goods, travel equipment, and clothing. It also offers rentals, classes, events, expert advice, and even outdoor-oriented vacations.

REI started in 1935 as a single shelf at a local cooperative grocery store while its founders, Lloyd and Mary Anderson, used their attic for storage. The co-op’s roots started with an ice ax.

Frustrated by the overpriced imitation knock-offs that the local ski shops sold, the two decided to order their own authentic and much more affordable ice axes directly from Austria, and thus began the co-op as others in Seattle caught wind and wanted to get involved with group buying power to lower costs of quality equipment.

Today, REI Co-Op is known for selling middle-of-the-road products that are high quality yet more affordable than some of the name brands, but not a cheap bargain off-brand steal you might find on the clearance rack. REI currently operates over 165 stores in 29 states.

Hibbett Sports. Birmingham, AL, USA

Revenue in 2020: $1.18 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: +17.4%

This full-line sporting goods retailer operates stores that target small to mid-sized markets predominantly in the southeast, southwest, and lower Midwest regions of the US. Overall, Hibbett saw impressive growth despite pandemic struggles that knocked similar company revenues down.

Hibbett Sports, formerly known as Dixie Supply Company, Inc., was founded by Rufus Hibbett in 1945 and currently operates over a thousand retail locations.

Most of Hibbett’s stores are located in large, enclosed malls, and it largely caters to low-population county markets. The company saw rapid expansion in the 1990s and switched from a private to a public company in 1996.

By focusing on smaller, need-driven markets, Hibbett has carved out a niche for itself, which worked out well for the company when looking at its profits from 2019 to 2020 despite the pandemic.

Big 5 Sporting Goods. El Segundo, CA, USA

Revenue in 2020: $1.04 billion
Revenue compared to 2019: +4.5%

This sporting goods retailer has stores across the western and southern United States. The company sells athletic shoes, apparel, accessories, and a broad selection of outdoor and athletic equipment for fitness, camping, sports, hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation for all seasons.

Big 5 was founded in 1955 and consisted of five stores in California. The company originally concentrated on WWII army surplus items, houseware, hand tools, tents, and air mattresses in its early days before it steered into the sporting goods industry. The company went public in 2002.

Big 5 is one of America’s top retailers for sporting goods and accessories and currently operates over 430 stores.

Academy Sports + Outdoors. Harris County, Texas, USA

Revenue in 2020: $308.8 million
Revenue compared to 2019: +157.2%

Academy Sports + Outdoors not only weathered the pandemic but even came out well ahead with record-breaking growth. This American company offers outdoor fitness products, sporting goods, bikes, clothing, and footwear such as sports shoes and boots.

The company’s founder, Max Gochman, opened the Academy Tire Shop in 1938 but started selling military surplus the following year. In 1945, the store’s name changed to Academy Super Surplus. Sporting goods joined the assortment a few decades later, and in 1995, the company once again changed its name to Academy Sports + Outdoors.

Today, the company operates more than 250 stores in 16 states and continues to push forward to contend with the big names in the sporting goods industry.