Sports Authority has little to invest to turn its financials around as it faces a deadline to refinance almost half of its debt, and has hired restructuring advisers, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. To reassure suppliers the company would have enough money for the holiday season, lenders injected $95 million in recent weeks. Today Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. is the largest sporting-goods chain, with $6.8 billion in sales last year and 645 stores. Nine years ago, the Sports Authority and Dick’s were neck and neck in revenue. An average Dick’s store has $10 million in annual sales, including those made online, compared with $5.75 million at Sports Authority, said Steven Ruggiero, a credit analyst at RW Pressprich & Co. Sports Authority’s operating income — profit after subtracting costs of goods sold and other expenses — hasn’t changed much in five years, inching up to $113.3 million in the year ended in February from $109.4 million in 2011, according to IBISWorld Inc. That figure in the same period for Dick’s climbed 79 percent, to $554.1 million.
