Sporting goods retailers, including the broader hunting and fishing category, have struggled over the past few years. That’s at least partly because the Internet has cut into their sales.
As a casual tennis player, for example, if I needed tennis balls, I had to go to a sporting goods retailer, which made it possible for me to buy something else. That’s a small lost sale for the retailer, but also a huge opportunity to convert the purchase into something bigger.
According to a Stanford University research report written in 2017, “Research estimates a nearly 4% decline in spending at brick-and-mortar stores due to the growth of e-commerce.”
According to Census.gov’s Quarterly Retail Online Sales Report released in December 2025, online spending nearly doubled to 15.8% in the third quarter of 2025 since that report’s study was conducted.
Retail foot traffic also declined by 1.4% in recreational and sporting goods stores in 2024, according to Placer.ai data, while overall retail foot traffic increased by 0.4% across all retail.
Lower foot traffic and a lack of high-end online presence has meant the demise of many sporting goods and outdoor brands over the past year.
Now Big Rock Sports has joined that list by filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Although not a household name, Big Rock Sports was a major player behind the scenes as a distributor. The company shared some of its business model on its now-defunct website, which was visited via the Internet Archive.
“Big Rock Sports offers more than 200,000 product SKUs and services to more than 20,000 fishing, shooting, camping, taxidermy and marine retailers in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and eight other countries,” the company shared.
The distributor had a long history.
“The history of Big Rock Sports goes back more than 60 years to the founding of All Sporting Supplies in Portland, Va. At the time, sporting goods was a very personal business, and distributors knew their retailers by name and their families,” it added.
(All Star Sports was founded in 1995, a Big Rock sports history going back 71 years.)
The company specializes in guns, gun accessories, and fishing gear.
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Filed for Big Rock Sports, LLC Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, according to BKAlerts.com.
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The Chapter 7 filing was voluntary and is being handled by a court-appointed trustee, according to documents filed with PacerMonitor.
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The lawsuit, case # 5:26-bk-00208, is being overseen by Judge Joseph N. Callaway, PacerMonitor added.
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When filed, the case is listed as “No property,” Indicating that limited or no assets are available for distribution, BKAlerts.com reported.
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Big Rock’s operations included numerous business names and divisions in the sporting goods and outdoor supply space, according to Infopsi.
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Prior to the Chapter 7 filing, related Canadian operations were liquidated, all employees were laid off, and inventory was being sold under liquidation proceedings, Solvency Insider Canada added.
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Secured creditors (eg, bank agents) and unsecured creditors are not expected to pay in full given the company’s limited receivables, Solvency Insider Canada added.
