Dive Brief:

• Sports Direct International PLC, a U.K.-based sporting goods retailer, and New York-based Modell’s Sporting Goods are in talks regarding a potential joint effort to acquire some 200 Sports Authority stores, sources have told the Wall Street Journal.

• Any bids for stores leased by Sports Authority, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections in March, are due Thursday. The liquidation is already under way and is expected to be completed by the end of next month. Modell’s, Sports Direct, and Sports Authority haven’t commented on the reported talks, according to the Journal.

• Sports Authority is also trying again to auction off its expensive naming rights to the Denver Broncos’ home stadium, according to CBS News.

Dive Insight:

These reported talks are a last-ditch effort to salvage the Sports Authority name or any of its stores. The ailing retailer is in advanced talks about a potential sale of 100 to 200 locations, according to its own Friday court filing described by the Journal. 

Going-out-of-business sales are happening now, and if Sports Authority leases aren’t sold, stores will close for good. It’s not clear how solid the effort is, though, as sources tell the Wall Street Journal that talks could dissolve at any time.

Sports Authority was once the largest sporting goods chain in the U.S., and in 2006, when the retailer was acquired by private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners for $1.3 billion, its future was bright. But the retailer has been hobbled by mounting debt, weak e-commerce returns and failures to meet increasing challenges in the space as general merchandise brands like Wal-Mart and Target and apparel retailers like Gap moved assertively into the sporting gear space.

Sports Authority is at least $643 million in debt, according to reports. Details of its struggles emerged earlier this year, when Bloomberg said that the retailer was in talks with bondholders. News of missing payments to suppliers and a failure to pay a $20 million interest payment soon followed, as well as store closings and employee layoffs. 

Earlier this month, Sports Authority settled more than 160 lawsuits filed by its consignment suppliers. At issue was some $85 million worth of winter gear and other goods being sold at Sports Authority stores—items suppliers wanted returned because they feared not getting paid.

Its own name isn’t the only asset on the block: Sports Authority in is once again attempting to sell its naming rights to Broncos stadium, after an auction for those rights in May had no takers. Any deal is complicated by the team's own objection to a sale.

The arrangement to append its name to Denver's “Mile High Stadium” has cost the company $6 million a year, with at least four more years to go, according to the Metropolitan Football Stadium District. The unusual deal— a more traditional naming-rights agreement includes just a one time payment, is widely seen has adding to the retailer’s crippling debt load.