Dick's Sporting Goods bids on Sports Authority stores

Dick's Sporting Goods submitted a bid for 17 Sports Authority stores, with other retailers making offers for only single locations of the bankrupt sporting goods retailer, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Bids were due Thursday night, and those submitted show muted interest in Sports Authority, once one of the largest sporting goods chains in the United States, with 464 stores. The bids may change and some late ones are still coming in, the person said. Bids for Sports Authority's intellectual property are not due until Monday evening.

An auction will be held next week, and a bankruptcy court judge will ultimately approve the final sale.

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Dick's and spokespeople for Sports Authority did not return a request for comment.

Sports Authority filed for bankruptcy in March amid fierce competition from giants including Wal Mart Stores and Amazon.com, and with more debt than it could support.

The company filed for Chapter 11 hoping to find a buyer who would continue to operate it as a going concern, but those efforts failed. Stores with no bidders will likely be shuttered. Liquidation sales are underway.

Dick's and Academy Sports + Outdoors, owned by buyout firm KKR & Co, had submitted letters of interest to buy some of the assets of Sports Authority earlier this year.

Academy Sports, a regional player in the southeastern United States, has not bid on any of the stores, said the person and another person familiar with the matter. Dick's leads the U.S. sporting goods industry with 600 stores.

A spokesperson for KKR declined to comment.

Modell's and U.K. sports retailer Sports Direct dropped a plan to bid together for close to 200 of the Sports Authority stores, according to a person familiar with the matter. The team had planned to operate the stores under the Sports Authority banner, the person said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the pair had not submitted a bid by the deadline.

The retailers that put in bids for single stores include furniture retailers, the person said.