Big 5 Sporting Goods
sporting goods retailer headquartered in El Segundo, California
Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation is a sporting goods retailer headquartered in El Segundo, California, with 410 stores in the Western United States. Theodore Shin is the CEO as of January 2026.
History
Founded in September 1955 by Maurie Liff, Harry Liff and Robert Miller, its name is derived from the first five Army surplus stores that were opened in California. Sportswest and Sportsland were acquired in May 1988 from Pay 'n Save.
In 1990, the company was fined $125,000 for selling discounted brand-name shoes that were actually poorly manufactured by those brands to be distributed only in Big 5 stores. For example, some New Balance models sold in Big 5 stores used a cardboard heel cup instead of a plastic heel cup. The investigation started when long-distance runner Gary Tuttle reported the oddly poor quality of the name-brand shoes he had purchased at Big 5 stores.
In 1997, Robert Miller and his son Steven G. Miller bought Big 5 back from Leonard Green & Partners, owners since 1992, by acquiring a majority stake. By then, the firm was making $400 million in revenue with 202 stores in 9 states.
In 2016, the company posted net sales of $1.02 billion with 432 stores in 11 States.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Big 5 Sporting Goods” is sporting goods retailer headquartered in El Segundo, California. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sporting, Goods and sporting, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4904902. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2026, 1955, 1988 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Big 5 Sporting Goods” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.