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MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Foot Locker, Inc. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
| NYSE: FL | |
| Industry | Clothing |
| Predecessor | F. W. Woolworth Company |
| Founded | September 12, 1974 |
| Founders | Santiago Lopez |
| Headquarters | 112 West 34th Street, New York City, New York 10120 , U.S. |
Number of locations | 2,523 stores (2023)[1] |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | |
| Brands |
|
| Revenue |  US$8.15 billion (2023)[1] |
| US$142 million (2023)[1] | |
| US$−330 million (2023)[1] | |
| Total assets | US$6.87 billion (2023)[1] |
| Total equity | US$2.89 billion (2023)[1] |
Number of employees | 46,846 (2023)[1] |
| Parent | Dick's Sporting Goods |
| Subsidiaries | Champs Sports WSS Runner's Point Sidestep |
| Website | footlocker |
Foot Locker, Inc. is an American multinational retailer of footwear, sportswear, urban youth apparel and accessories owned by Dick's Sporting Goods. It is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City,[2] and operates in over 40 countries.
Although established as a brand in 1974 and as a separate company in 1988, Foot Locker's roots date to 1879, as it is a successor corporation to the F. W. Woolworth Company ("Woolworth's"), which was incorporated in 1905 and changed its name to Foot Locker in 2001, as many of its freestanding stores were Kinney Shoes and Woolworth's locations.[3] The company operates the eponymous "Foot Locker" chain of athletic footwear retail outlets (along with "Kids Foot Locker" and "Lady Foot Locker" stores), and other athletic-based divisions including Champs Sports, Footaction USA, House of Hoops, and Eastbay/Footlocker.com, which owns the rights to Final-Score. The company is also famous for its employees' uniforms at its flagship Foot Locker chain, resembling those of referees.
According to the company's filings with the SEC, as of 2023, Foot Locker, Inc. had 2,523 primarily mall-based stores in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Nearly 70% of its products are from Nike.[4]
In May 2025, Dick's Sporting Goods announced its intention to acquire Foot Locker for $2.4 billion. The sale was completed in September 2025.[5]
In 1963, the F. W. Woolworth Company purchased the Kinney Shoe Corporation and operated it as a subsidiary. In the 1960s, Kinney branched into specialty shoe stores, including Stylco in 1967, Susie Casuals in 1968, and Foot Locker on September 12, 1974. The first Foot Locker opened in the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California.[6] Woolworth also diversified its portfolio of specialty stores in the 1980s, including Afterthoughts, Northern Reflections, Rx Place, and Champs Sports. By 1989, the company pursued an aggressive strategy of multiple specialty store formats targeted at enclosed shopping malls. The idea was that if a particular concept failed at a given mall, the company could quickly replace it with a different concept. The company aimed for ten stores in each of the country's major shopping malls, but this never came to pass as Woolworth never developed that many successful specialty store formats.
In April 1989, the F.W. Woolworth Company reincorporated as a separate company, known as the Woolworth Corporation in the state of New York. The Woolworth Corporation was responsible for the operations of the Foot Locker stores, among the other specialty chains operated by Woolworth's. One of its first moves was the acquisition of Champs Sports and renaming itself the Woolworth Athletic Group.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the F.W. Woolworth Company's flagship department store chain fell into decline, ultimately culminating in the closure of the last stores operating under the name of Woolworth's in the United States in 1997. Deciding to continue aggressive expansion into the athletic business in the following years, the company acquired Eastbay in 1997, which was the largest athletic catalog retailer in the United States, as well as subsequent purchases of regional storefront retailers Sporting Goods (purchased in 1997) and The Athletic Fitters (purchased in 1998). After 1997, Wal-Mart replaced Woolworth in the Dow Jones average. The Woolworth Corporation remained the parent company of Foot Locker, and in June 1998 it changed its name to "Venator Group, Inc." By the 1990s, Foot Locker was responsible for more than 70 percent of Kinney Shoe Corp. sales, while traditional shoe retailer Kinney was in decline. Venator announced shuttering of the remaining Kinney Shoe and Footquarters stores on September 16, 1998;[7][8] this decision had been preceded by the closure of all Canadian Kinney Shoe stores that April.[9] Matthew Serra became president and COO in 2000.[10]
As the "Foot Locker" brand had become the Woolworth/Venator company's top performing line, on November 2, 2001, Venator changed its name to Foot Locker, Inc.[11] At that time, Serra became CEO of the company. In 2004, he was also named chairman. In the early 2000s, the majority of Foot Locker stores were renovated and standardized.[10] On November 19, 2004, Foot Locker announced that its quarterly profit rose 19 percent, helped by stronger sales.[12]
In 2004, Foot Locker acquired the Footaction USA brand and approximately 350 stores from Footstar for $350 million (~$555 million in 2024).[13] On April 14, 2004, Foot Locker Inc. announced that it agreed to buy about 350 Footaction stores from bankrupt Footstar Inc. for $160 million (~$254 million in 2024) to expand in urban areas.[14]
On January 10, 2005, the company announced that Nick Grayston was promoted to President and Chief Executive Officer of its Foot Locker U.S. division, succeeding Tim Finn, who retired from the company.[15]
In 2007, Foot Locker joined with schoolPAX[16] to launch the Foot Locker School Rewards Program,[17] designed to provide charitable donations to schools who sign up and shop at Foot Locker with a custom-coded key tag or school code. Also that year, Foot Locker attempted a revival of the Footquarters name and store format, but put an end to the idea afte only 3 months.[18]
In 2008, Foot Locker purchased CCS, a skateboarding equipment retailer, from Alloy for $103 million in cash.[19] In August 2009, Ken Hicks succeeded Matt Serra as CEO.[10]
In 2011, Foot Locker joined DoSomething.Org for the Foot Locker Scholar Athletes program, which honors high school athletes for demonstrating academic excellence and flexing their hearts on their sports teams and in their communities.
On June 26, 2012, Foot Locker celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first stock offering made by its predecessor, the F. W. Woolworth Company, on the New York Stock Exchange by ringing the Closing Bell for the trading day.
In 2013, the company acquired the German retailer Runners Point Group.[20]
After not meeting corporate expectations, Foot Locker planned to close its CCS unit but sold it to Daddies Board Shop in 2014.[19] In December 2014, Ken Hicks stepped down as CEO. He was succeeded by COO Richard Johnson.[21]
Foot Locker has steadily risen in Fortune 500 rank, from 446 in 2011[22] to 363 in 2018.[23] Foot Locker recorded a record turnover of 7.151 million dollars at the end of the fiscal year 2015.[24]
In 2019, Foot Locker invested $100 million (~$121 million in 2024) in GOAT, an online resale marketplace for sneakers.[25] Foot Locker was heavily damaged and looted in the riotings, with two locations destroyed by arson, following the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul in May 2020.[26][27][28]
By November 2020, Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský's holding company Vesa Equity Investment Sarl became the largest shareholder of Foot Locker with a 10% holding by buying Macy's stake.[29][30]
In 2021, Foot Locker acquired Los Angeles–based athletic retailer WSS and Tokyo-based Atmos.[31]
In 2022, Foot Locker announced it would aim to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.[32] In September 2022, Mary Dillon was named CEO, replacing the retiring Richard Johnson.[33]
A Foot Locker outlet was looted in the June–July 2023 France riots following the police shooting of Moroccan/Algerian Nahel Merzouk.
A Foot Locker outlet was looted in the November 2023 Dublin, Ireland riots following the stabbings by Algerian Riad Bouchaker.[citation needed]
In 2023, Footlocker announced plan to close up to 400 low performing stores by 2026.[34]
On May 15, 2025, Dick's Sporting Goods announced that it would acquire the Foot Locker, Inc. company as well as its brands, including Foot Locker, for $2.4 billion.[35] The deal closed on September 8, 2025. After the acquisition, Dillon was replaced by former Nike executive Ann Freeman as president and CEO.[36]
On February 12, 1999, a federal jury in Austin awarded $341,000 (equivalent to $601,979 in 2024)[37] to a former Foot Locker shoe store manager who said the company systematically discriminated against its African American employees by offering more opportunities for promotions to white managers.[38]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Foot Locker, Inc. is an American multinational retailer of footwear, sportswear, urban youth apparel and accessories owned by Dick's Sporting Goods. It is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and operates in over 40 countries. Although established as a brand in 1974 and as a separate company in 1988, Foot Locker's roots date to 1879, as it is a successor corporation to the F. W. Woolworth Company ("Woolworth's"), which was incorporated in 1905 and changed its name to Foot Locker in 2001, as many of its freestanding stores were Kinney Shoes and Woolworth's locations. The company operates the eponymous "Foot Locker" chain of athletic footwear retail outlets (along with "Kids Foot Locker" and "Lady Foot Locker" stores), and other athletic-based divisions including Champs Sports, Footaction USA, House of Hoops, and Eastbay/Footlocker.com, which owns the rights to Final-Score. The company is also famous for its employees' uniforms at its flagship Foot Locker chain, resembling those of referees. According to the company's filings with the SEC, as of 2023, Foot Locker, Inc. had 2,523 primarily mall-based stores in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Nearly 70% of its products are from Nike. In May 2025, Dick's Sporting Goods announced its intention to acquire Foot Locker for $2.4 billion. The sale was completed in September 2025.
The High School Cross Country National Championships ("XC Championships"), formerly known as the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships and now the Brooks XC Championships, is a series of annual cross country running races held in various regions of the United States to determine the premier cross country runner in various age groups, but mainly served to find the best prep (high school) cross country athlete in the country. The event began in 1979 by the F. W. Woolworth Company, which initially branded it as the Kinney Cross Country Championships, (for the Kinney Shoes division) at Morley Field Sports Complex in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, before Woolworth rebranded the event in 1993 to the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships for Woolworth's sporting goods company. For most people associated with the sport, the name was just shortened to Foot Locker or even abbreviated in agate results as FL (the ticker symbol of the company today). In 2021 the event was rebranded as the Eastbay Cross Country Championships and then again as the Champs Sports XC Championships in 2022 after the Foot Locker owned company, only to return to the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships in 2023. The event is the longest-running national cross country race for high school students. On August 21, 2025, it was announced the series would be no longer be supported and hosted by Foot Locker. Days later on August 29, 2025, Brooks and Fleet Feet announced that they would be continuing the series under a new name and sponsorship. On December 13, 2025, the first Brooks XC Championships national event was held in Balboa Park.
The F. W. Woolworth Company (often called Woolworth's or Woolworth) was an American retail conglomerate, best known as a pioneer of the five-and-dime store. It became one of the most successful five-and-dime businesses in the United States and internationally, helping shape the modern retail model used by stores worldwide. The first store was opened by Frank Winfield Woolworth on February 22, 1879, as Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store in Utica, New York, but was not successful and closed after three months. After searching for a new location, Woolworth opened another store on June 21, 1879, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which became his first successful store. He later brought his brother, Charles Sumner Woolworth, into the business. The company then expanded its department store model across North America, becoming one of the biggest retailers of the 20th century. It would then expand internationally, entering the United Kingdom in 1909, Ireland in 1914, Germany in 1927 and Mexico in 1956. In 1963, the company became the parent company of Kinney Shoes, which would create the Foot Locker retailer in 1974. From the 1980s onwards, the U.S. business faced decline due to hostile competition in the department store market, however the sporting goods division (such as Foot Locker) was still flourishing. In 1982, the Woolworth division in the United Kingdom was divested, which included the Irish division. In July 1997, the Woolworth department store chain closed its final U.S. stores and shifted its focus to sporting goods, renaming itself as Venator Group. In 1997 and 1998, it divested of its remaining Woolworth businesses in Mexico and Germany. By 2001, Woolworth had moved exclusively into the sporting goods market and adopted its current name, Foot Locker, Inc.
Eastbay was an American supplier of athletic footwear, apparel and sports equipment, selling through direct mail and the internet. In 1997, it became a subsidiary of the F. W. Woolworth Company, later known as Foot Locker, Inc.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.
