How do you launch an internationally successful retail model in a new market? In this exclusive extract from Ragtrader's FREE Fashion Retail Report: 2025, Australian retail conglomerate Accent Group reveals its local rollout strategy for Sports Direct.
Accent Group CEO Daniel Agostinelli has over six billion reasons why he shook hands with Frasers Group in a bid to roll out the UK company’s Sports Direct retail subsidiary across Australia. Six billion is how much the sporting market is estimated to be worth in Australia.
In fact, IBISWorld estimates fitness and athletic clothing stores in Australia are worth around $4.1 billion in 2024-25, with online sporting apparel worth around half a million.
And then there’s the athletic footwear market in Australia, which is expected to reach a projected revenue of US$2.23 billion (~A$3.49 billion) by 2030, according to Horizon Grand View Research.
Accent Group already plays a decent hand in the Australian sneaker market with brands and retailers like Hoka, Skechers, Sneakerlab and Glue Store, and dabbles in apparel with the likes of Nude Lucy.
Agostinelli says Accent also has the best part of $350 million worth of business coming out of The Athlete’s Foot. “And that market – whichever way you look at it, depending on who you ask – is a 5 or 6 billion dollar market, so we're not playing strong enough in that space,” he says.
And so, after 12 months of back-and-forth chats with Frasers Group – alongside a strategic sell-off of a 14.65 per cent stake in Accent by Brett Blundy to Frasers – the Australian footwear conglomerate is gearing up for a nationwide Sports Direct rollout, signing a 25-year contract to boot.
The initial plan includes the rollout of at least 50 Sports Direct stores across Australia over the next six years, which could ultimately culminate to around 100 stores in the long term.
Accent Group assures that the initial investment in capex and opex to roll-out the Sports Direct stores will be substantial. But much of the initial funding has come from an upped stake in Accent by Frasers to 19.57 per cent, adding an extra $60 million to fuel the local push.
Alongside stores, Agostinelli confirms the group will also establish a new distribution centre in Melbourne to bolster demand, expected to be around 20,000 square metres. This will add to an existing 35,000 square metres of distribution space in Sydney.
But there’s one more reason why Agostinelli is keen on Sports Direct. He says the UK retailer looks more exciting compared to other players currently in the market.
“It has an amazing back-end system, which has been developed by Sports Direct over many years in terms of how they replenish, how the distribution centre is supposed to operate,” he says. “We won't be a discounter, but we will be a value player. They don't really discount that much, it's much more of a value play. And on top of that, they're one of the biggest sellers of football boots – certainly in the UK and Europe.
“We think we'll have a much bigger breadth of all of those areas, and we'll be totally focused on on sport footwear and apparel. We're looking to actually expand on that segment.”
Moreover, sports play a big part in Australian culture, with the Australian Football League in Melbourne and the National Rugby League. Agostinelli says soccer in particular is growing at a rate of knots, particularly in New South Wales. In the UK, Sports Direct is a major seller of licensed soccer apparel – from Manchester United to Arsenal.
“We think there's a position for the business. But we don't take anything for granted. We have to execute. We've got to show up. We've got to earn the respect of our customers and our brands.”
To bolster the local push, Accent Group has recently shifted its teams. Hamish Allison – who has been with Accent for the last 15 years – has been moved from his divisional CEO role covering the performance division to executive GM of Sports Direct.
“He was the guy that was running Saucony,” Agostinelli says. “He was the guy that was running Hoka, and he also had The Athletes Foot reporting to him.”
Allison is currently pulling together what Agostinelli calls the A team – planners, retail leads, merchandise leads and the like, and later a manager for the new distribution centre in Melbourne.
Accent will also require a digital lead to run a locally dedicated website.
“We will build a brand new website, which will be faster, more exciting, with all the bells and whistles of the latest and greatest technology,” Agostinelli says. “But overall, our drive is going to be to follow the DNA of Sports Direct as closely as we can the current international model. That's a very important point.
“Whatever DNA works for them internationally, we will be doing exactly the same here, and some of their execs from the UK will be here to help us execute, particularly for the first four or five stores.”