Sports Authority Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Sports Authority full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – -selling sporting goods
-good lower level people.

Cons – -no holiday pay
-expect you to work 75 plus hours a week
-district and regional managers don't live in reality.
-measurable goals that are not attainable.
-bonus program on really attainable for new stores with low goals
-priorities are never consistent
-district and regional managers do NOT appreciate hard work
-payroll doesn't align with work load.
-work life balance no existent.
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Advice to Senior Management – Pay your store managers competitively. Stop managing by fear and live in reality.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Sports Authority full-time for less than a year

Pros – Discounts on sports good and clothing. Decent health plan.

Cons – If you're looking to work in a call center environment, and don't let your would-be job title fool you, it's a call center job, where you're always being pushed to do more work, using subpar equipment and outdated software that will never be upgraded because it's free to them, and working under lower management that is hyperfocused on meeting SLA's and documentation to the degree that is better suited for a law office, then Sports Authority's Service Desk division of the I.T. department is where you want to work.

There have been more people who have come and gone from that department than I have ever seen anywhere else I've worked. They have a ridiculously high turnover rate and now that I'm gone I understand why.

Lower management liberally throws around the feel good corporate buzzwords like "team" and "family" and "communication" (communication, by the way, is just another word for 'documentation to CYA'), and they have lovely little flowcharts to show you an alledged "promotion path" and you can even make suggestions on how to improve things (which will be formally acknowledged and then promptly ignored), but they deliver poorly with employee retention because they don't actually go to bat to improve working conditions, be they job-related, equipment-related, scheduling related, and they have severe tunnel vision regarding both their department's expenses(overtime is a horrid word, they're using old ticket management software that has to be run on a platform that is using an emulator of an old version of internet explorer and crashes half the time you use it on your old windows xp based pc) and their standards of practice to deliver better customer service, but then again, their customers are "just the store employees" (unless you're a company officer, THEN you'll actually see real customer service standards come into play) so, despite all their talk about how important the store employees are because "without them we don't make any money and we don't have jobs", it's all fluff.

After speaking with an external recruiter about this company, I was told that this high turnover rate is something done deliberately to keep long term costs down. During my time there, I've seen more than qualified individuals being fed through this department's turnover machine without so much as a second thought. I've seen people who have been there for a long time being passed over for promotions over others who have not been there as long, but had better "socializing with the boss" skills. Sociopaths and brown nosers who don't actually work will excel in this department and maybe the entire division. Lower management likes to take care of their own.

Oh, you may be interested to know that your Service Desk position will have an on-call element to it, even though they don't tell you that during the interview, and that lower management will try to get you to do their job for them when you need some time off but they need coverage.

Department morale takes a back seat to lower management's toe the party line goals.

Advice to Senior Management – Dear upper management. Do yourselves and your non-management employees a favor and fire everyone in lower management. They are not reporting to you what you really need to know, they're telling you what you want to hear simply keep their jobs. If you are not sociopathic yourselves, you will see how this will negatively affect both the quality of work you'll get from your employees as well as your ability to keep quality employees in your divisions.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sports Authority part-time for less than a year

Pros – 25% employee discount, I loved my direct supervisor- she was wonderful!, average starting rate of pay, good with giving you time off as requested

Cons – Hours are few and far between during off season times, disorganized management, constantly having goals and standards ('loyalty enrollment" or "productivity") being shoved down your throat. High turnover rate for employees

Advice to Senior Management – Don't fire good workers over the tiniest things

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sports Authority part-time for more than a year

Pros – hours are really good for employees.

Cons – everyone is ignorant within the storeas to customers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Sports Authority part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Sports atmosphere
Fun co-workers
Customers are typically friendly and enjoyable to help

Cons – More concerned with profits than value
No loyalty to workers
Forced to sell useless warranty plans
Problems are deflected onto lower workers rather than creating plausible solutions

Advice to Senior Management – Build a business focused on the company mission and values, rather than driving for more profit. Customers have the most contact with associates, if the associates are miserable because management is threatening them for "poor" sales the customer will see this and be less motivated to return.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Sports Authority full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great people to work with, especially if you find the right team. There are a few really outstanding managers and directors still around there.

Cons – All the best people are leaving, and management doesn't understand why. No flex time or work from home (officially) allowed. Constantly putting out fires instead of preventing the fires in the first place.

Advice to Senior Management – When half the IT team leave, you might consider the fact that putting all their work on top of those left will only encourage them to leave too.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sports Authority full-time for less than a year

Pros – Worked with great people for the most part. High energy work environment, and always something to do on really slow days to pass time. There are a lot of things you can push to sell in store that give you pay bonuses and the work shirts are an awesome air-dry wet-proof thin fabric.

Cons – Pay is not the greatest for the high pressure sales required by corporate and other employees will steal your sales without being penalized. Schedule was never up until the last minute sometimes a day after that week hasd started making planning your personal affairs very difficult.

Advice to Senior Management – Reprimand thieves that steal from co-workers, be sure the coming schedule is out the promised two weeks prior for good notice and more pay is always nice. :)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sports Authority full-time for more than a year

Pros – Worked with and met some great people at the store level but that doesnt translate into a good company what so ever. When a company goes through 3 CEOs in 2 years they cant expect anyone to have much faith in them.

Cons – Company is going out of business so there is no point to get involved with any sort of management. I worked at a store near the corporate offices and met a lot of the high ups there. After a few failed buy outs because of its competitors it became clear that no company would ever get involved with TSA as long as they have the stadium and a relatively unskilled upper management.

Advice to Senior Management – Starting pay for managers is around 12.30 but you are expected to work ridiculous hours, made to take PDOs when stores are over hours, and expected to work off the clock.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Sports Authority full-time for more than a year

Pros – You learn a lot about sports.

Cons – Not enough pay
Unreasonable expectations
No help from upper management

Advice to Senior Management – Take the time to listen to your employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Sports Authority full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Flexible hours
- Friendly employees
- Good vacation accumulation

Cons – - Sales are set to unrealistic measures
- Poor to no training at all (as a sales associate. Cashiers are provided with minimal training.
- Payroll is constantly being reduced - lack of staff causing project pitfalls and customer service issues.

Advice to Senior Management – Micromanage those training the new hires to ensure they are getting quality training rather than being thrown to the dogs prior to being adequately prepared. Recommendations for corporate: Step up the advertising in the southern regions. No TV ads? Are you kidding me? No wonder our traffic is poor, yet the store is only a year old.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company