Why sporting goods retailers are fumbling

The L.A. Times reports:

In sports, it's an asset if you can play multiple positions.

If you're a sporting goods retailer, trying to do it all often ends in defeat.

Sport Chalet learned that the hard way, abruptly announcing Saturday that it was closing all of its 47 stores. The La Canada Flintridge-based chain spent years battling financial troubles and struggled to keep pace with changing consumer tastes that made for exceptionally fierce competition — even by retail standards.

A perennial money-loser for nearly the last decade, Sport Chalet was in business 57 years but couldn't withstand pressures now coming from all sides: larger sporting goods rivals, big-box discounters, online retailers and specialty high-end brands all ate into the company's market share.

Creative destruction.