DW Sports Fitness was a British

retailing Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

and fitness business, founded as a result of Dave Whelan's purchase of 50

JJB Sports JJB Sports plc was a British sports retailer. On 24 September 2012, shares in JJB Sports were suspended, and the firm called in administrators. On 1 October 2012, it was announced that Sports Direct had purchased part of the business, includ ...

fitness clubs with attached retail stores for £83.4 million in March 2009. The business would later encompass more than 140 sites, which included expansion to stand-alone

retail stores The retail format (also known as the retail formula) influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services are ...

and stand-alone

fitness clubs A health club (also known as a fitness club, fitness center, health spa, and commonly referred to as a gym) is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. In recent years, the number of fitness and health ser ...

. In 2011, the business joined buying group

Intersport Intersport GmbH is a French sporting goods retailer based in Bern, Switzerland. Its purchasing division is IIC-Intersport International Corporation. It has a presence in 5800 locations and in 65 countries. History In 1924, La Hutte company, S ...

, and began using its name within its facades, and in 2016 it joint-purchased the

Fitness First Fitness First is an international fitness centre brand founded in 1993 in the United Kingdom. The company owned and operated its clubs around the world until financial pressures saw parts of the company sold off to various owners in different re ...

UK business alongside

The Gym Group The Gym Group is a chain of 24/7 no contract fitness clubs in the United Kingdom. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2015. Operations The company was founded in 2007 and its first site was in West London. It now has ov ...

and Greenwich Leisure Limited. In August 2020, it announced that DW Sports Fitness was to enter administration. A considerable number of its locations were then purchased by Frasers Group, who turned them into Everlast Fitness Club and

Sports Direct Frasers Group plc (formerly known as Sports Direct International plc) is a British retail, sport and intellectual property group, named after its ownership of the department store chain House of Fraser. The company is best known for trading pre ...

locations, whilst some Fitness First locations would continue. It is understood that 922 jobs out of 1,700 were saved by Frasers Group. The DW Sports Fitness brand continues administration and realisation. A stadium in Wigan remains as the

DW Stadium The DW Stadium is a stadium in Robin Park, in Wigan, within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The ground is owned and managed by Wigan Football Company Limited, which is 85% owned by Wigan Athletic and 15% owned ...

for the time being.

History

Retail

Association with Intersport

In April 2011, in an effort to boost the profile of their retail stores DW Sports joined the international buying group

. As a result, the Intersport logo was incorporated into the ''DW Sports Fitness'' fascias.

Retail sites

In November 2012, the first stand-alone DW Sports retail site opened. Located at the Grand Arcade shopping centre in

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the north-east and Warrington ...

, it occupies the former JJB unit. In November 2012, in the wake of

's demise. Mike Ashley's

was rumoured to have purchased 60 JJB sites for a reported £30 million, leaving the other 120+ stores in the former JJB portfolio. Some reports say DW Sports is not interested in acquiring any further JJB units, whilst others say that they are. As of March 2020 the group operated 75 retail stores.

Fitness

In 2016, DW Sports Fitness acquired all 62

clubs in the UK from Oaktree Capital Management, selling 14 of those and continuing to operate 48 under the Fitness First brand. As of August 2020 DW Sports Fitness operated 73 gyms, 43 of them under the Fitness First brand.

2020 administration

In June 2020 the company announced that 25 retail stores would be closing down as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

and lockdown. On 3 August 2020 it announced that it was to enter administration with all stores eventually closing, and that it was working with the administrators to save some of the gyms from closure. The 43 gyms operating under the Fitness First brand would be unaffected by the administration as they are operated within a separate company. The website closed with immediate effect on 3 August and closing down sales started in their stores on the same day. On 24 August 2020, it was announced that the company founded by Dave Whelan's long time rival Mike Ashley, Frasers Group, would buy 46 leisure clubs and 31 retail outlets from DW Sports Fitness for £37m, but would not be using the firm's brand name. 922 jobs out of the 1,700 would be saved as part of the Frasers Group deal.

References

External links

* *{{url, www.dwfitnessclubs.com Companies based in Wigan Retail companies established in 2009 Retail companies of England Sportswear brands Companies that have entered administration in the United Kingdom