175 Store Closures Announced

Person flipping closed sign on glass door — 175 STORES CLOSING NOW

JD Sports paid $1.1 billion for Hibbett Sports in 2024, and now it plans to shut down 175 of those stores — raising a question every shopper in the Southeast and Midwest should be asking right now.

Story Snapshot

JD Sports plans to close about 175 Hibbett Sports stores across the U.S. over the next three years.
JD Sports bought Hibbett in 2024 for roughly $1.1 billion to grow its North American footprint.
The company says it wants fewer, bigger, and more profitable stores going forward.
Hibbett has long served small and mid-sized towns in the Southeast, Southwest, and lower Midwest.

A $1.1 Billion Deal That Is Now Shrinking Fast

JD Sports, the British athletic retailer, bought Hibbett Sports just two years ago. The deal cost about $1.1 billion and was supposed to give JD a stronger grip on the American market. ^[1]

Hibbett had built its name in smaller towns where big-box competition was thin. That strategy worked for decades. Now the parent company says a large chunk of those same stores are not pulling their weight.

Hibbett Sports owner plans to close 175 underperforming stores in major North American reorganization https://t.co/SYgGFpK67q

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) June 8, 2026

JD Sports Chief Executive Régis Schultz spelled out the plan on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

His words were direct: close around 170 underperforming stores over the next three years, optimize the earnings-before-interest-and-taxes store footprint, and improve North American profitability. ^[1]

The company also said it wants to convert some locations rather than simply shut them down, trading smaller stores for bigger, better ones. That is the official story, and so far, no one has filed a formal challenge to it.

What “Underperforming” Actually Means for Small Towns

Hibbett built its reputation by going where Nike and Foot Locker would not. ^[5] It planted stores in small and mid-sized markets across the Southeast, Southwest, and lower Midwest.

Those communities often had no other option for name-brand athletic gear. When a Hibbett closes in a town like that, there is rarely a replacement waiting around the corner. The closures are not just a balance-sheet story. For some ZIP codes, they are a retail desert story.

The company has not released a full list of which 175 stores will close. That matters. Without a store-by-store breakdown, shoppers and landlords in smaller markets have no way to know if their location is on the list. ^[6]

The silence creates anxiety in exactly the communities Hibbett was built to serve. A company that markets itself as the hometown sporting goods store owes those towns more transparency than a vague three-year timeline.

The Post-Acquisition Playbook Everyone Uses but Nobody Admits To

This move follows a pattern that repeats itself in retail after almost every major acquisition. A buyer pays a premium, inherits a large fleet of stores, and then announces a rationalization plan once the ink is dry. ^[3] The language is always the same: optimize, streamline, focus on productivity.

JD Sports is using that exact script. That does not make the closures wrong, but it does mean shoppers should not be surprised. The writing was on the wall the day the acquisition closed.

🏬 Overview:
A major U.S. sporting‑goods retailer — Hibbett Sports, owned by JD Sports — is set to close 175 stores across the United States as part of a multi‑year reorganization and cost‑cutting strategy.

📉 Core Facts:
– Hibbett store closures — JD Sports will shut about 175…

— Washington Report (@Washington_Rep) June 8, 2026

JD Sports Chief Financial Officer Dominic Platt said the goal is to have fewer, larger, and more productive locations. ^[7] That is a reasonable business goal. Retail margins are thin, lease costs are rising, and foot traffic in smaller markets has shifted online.

Closing a store that loses money is not a scandal. But when a company pays $1.1 billion for a chain and then immediately begins cutting a fifth of its locations, it is fair to ask whether the due diligence matched the price tag. This says someone either overpaid or underestimated the cleanup required.

What Comes Next and Who Gets Left Behind

JD Sports says the closures will happen over three years, wrapping up by around 2029. ^[2] Some stores will be converted to the JD Sports banner rather than closed outright. That is a small comfort for towns where a conversion is not on the table. The real test will come when the closure list goes public.

Until then, employees, landlords, and loyal customers in hundreds of small American towns are left waiting on a decision made in a British boardroom. That is a hard thing to dress up as good news, no matter how clean the earnings-call language sounds.