Sports Basement Through The Years
Back when Sports Basement first opened its doors, cell phones were still giant plastic bricks and photos were still developed on film. Our first store ran on Windows 95 and our signs were all drawn by hand (actually, we still draw a lot of our signs by hand - I guess not everything has to change)! The dot-com boom was starting to bust, and Tom, Eric and Dave, friends since 1st grade, just wanted to get outdoors without paying an arm and a leg. They banded together to create something weird and new - a sporting goods store that catered to everyone that wanted to enjoy the outdoors, with no high-cost barrier to entry. The whole idea was to work with the smallest margins possible so Sports Basement could have the best brands at, well, Basement prices.
It worked, and now Sports Basement is able to deliver great gear at great prices at 11 different stores in the greatest place on Earth (that's the Bay Area, in case you weren't sure). We're so thankful that you, dear reader, are a part of our community!
Pre Sports Basement
It all started with Tom, Eric, Dave and Marin (not pictured) way back in 1998 on top of Mt. Rainier...
November 27, 1998
We opened the Mission Bay store. It was our first official location and we were only open Friday-Sunday, and we cut costs everywhere we could - we made all our fixtures from found materials, painted our own signs, and Tom scoured the streets in his pickup looking for secondhand couches to clean up and use. We've kept up that tradition - we still make all our fixtures from scratch, and you'll still find comfy couches in all our stores!
January 1999
Since we were at the store working every day, we decided to open 7 days a week - pretty wild, right?June 1999
Our staff took part in what would become a yearly tradition - attending and hosting a booth at the Wildflower Triathlon! We call it Camp Wildflower, 'cause it's basically summer camp for Sports Basement staffers.
2001
We took part in our first ever AIDS/LifeCycle ride! And we didn't just ride with them - we went all in and sent our mechanics along to provide their valuable services along the ride - and we've kept on wrenchin' for ALC every year since.
October 2003
We outgrew our Mission Bay store and had a stroke of luck when the old commissary store (that's military for "grocery store") became available in the Presidio. We threw out a bid for it right under the wire, and to our surprise, we got it! We kept a lot of the signs up - that's why you can still see the Bakery and Fish sections at our Presidio store. The Presidio remains our oldest operational store, and is the home base for our President (that's Eric up there) as well as Tom!
June 2005
The South Bay kept catching our eye, so three years later we extended ourselves down Hwy 101 and opened up our Sunnyvale store in what had been a Fry's Electronics. If you look carefully, you can still find some weird little touches from those days, like the bits of floor painted to look like a circuit board.
June 2007
We stepped it up a notch when we decided to journey across the Bay Bridge to the East Bay just a year later! Our Walnut Creek store is small but mighty, and is literally filled to the rafters with good gear and good people.
July 1st, 2007
Back in SF, we acquired the former Hamm's brewery right at Bryant St. & 15th. It took a ton of work (manufacturing plants have very little in common with retail stores), but we managed to open that very same year.
2013
After years of staring longingly at the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, we finally got a chance to put down roots there. Fun fact - part of that store's footprint used to be a video store (videos are these black plastic boxes that we used to watch movies on before Netflix). We still show plenty of movies, so the legacy lives on!
November 2014
We're exceptionally proud of our second East Bay location - Berkeley's Iceland! The once-glorious Iceland ice rink had been in a sad state of disrepair for years and years before we managed to convince the city that we'd be able to repair it while keeping its heritage intact. Signage describing the original ice rink are posted throughout the store, and we refurbished the scoreboard and kept the original Iceland sign, which is mounted behind our front registers. The rest of the store is unchanged from its ice rink days (minus the ice) and yes, it can get kinda cold in there! If you have a very keen eye, you might be able to find some ice skates and other accessories that we recovered and built into our fixtures at the store!
2015
After a bit of a bumpy start, our newly formed ecommerce department launches our new and improved sportsbasement.com. We think it's pretty cool, and we're not just saying that 'cause you're browsing it right now.March 2016
Our Basementeer program, one of our proudest achievements, was launched in 2016! Since our founding we'd always worked hard to incorporate community partners like schools and local charities into our business model, with the thought that the more you shop, the more we're able to give. Our Basementeer program took that concept and ran with it! Basementeers get 10% off all of their purchases, and we donate 10% of profits to their choice of one of the 1,200+ charities or school we're partnered with.
April 2016
We hosted our very first Basement Basement Sale (that's deals even lower than what you'd find at the Basement - hence, the Basement Basement) at our Bryant Street store. 30 people were lined up at 6am and over 400 people were lined up by 7am! Our Basement Basement Sales take returned and slightly damaged items that can't be sold in our stores like new, marks them down up to 90%, and gets them into your hands!
September 2016
We decided to delve deeper into the East Bay and found an old hardware store that was just begging to be turned into something special. With its location butting right up against the Iron Horse Trail, it was truly meant to be, and our San Ramon General Manager uses the Iron Horse Trail to bike to work every day!
2017
We'd put down roots in the South Bay, and we'd delved deep into the East Bay, but we'd never been able to find the perfect North Bay spot... until 2017! We opened our Santa Rosa store in July, right near the Costco.
October 2017
Sadly, a few months later the Sonoma County Fires threatened our communities. We were fortunate to be able to offer up our store as a safe space for first responders to rest up and revitalize themselves, and we provided them with at-cost gear while our customers all over the Bay Area joined our efforts to collect donations and gift cards for victims. We are incredibly proud to be part of such a resilient and strong community.
June 2018
About six months later, we found the perfect place to call home in Novato! Considering how much we all enjoy biking over the Golden Gate and hanging out in Marin County, this was a dream come true for all of us. We managed to open the Novato store in record time.
October 2018
After sponsoring and participating in races for almost 20 years, we decided it was finally time we hosted our own. Our first annual Halloween 5K presented by Sports Basement raised over $100,000 for The Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco!
November 2018
We celebrated our 20th birthday! Thanks to our amazing customers, staff, and community we raised our glasses (and our beers cans) to 20 years of proudly serving the Bay Area.
December 2018
Our 10th and largest store yet opened in late November, and is hosted biggest Grand Snowpening ever on December 1 & 2.
February 6, 2019
Our first Powder Bus took off to Squaw Valley | Alpine Meadows to take advantage of some of the freshest pow we've ever skiied on.
September 2019
We donated to over 1,400 local schools and charities thanks to our Basementeers! We've raised over $10 million since our humble beginnings in 1998 all thanks to our amazing customers.
March 2020
Like the rest of the world, Sports Basement underwent many serious changes when COVID-19 hit. For the safety of our staff and our communities, and for the first time in our history, we closed all our stores for nearly 2 months. When we finally reopened, we did so with industry-leading safety procedures that put us head and shoulders above our competitors. Our work paid off - as of this update, we have had zero COVID-19 outbreaks company-wide, and have developed several new ways of connecting with and serving our communities during these unprecedented times.
June 2020
With the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the Black Lives Matter protests taking place in our Bay Area communities and throughout the world, we realized it was time to take a hard look at our own diversity and inclusion practices. We created an internal Diversity Quorum made up of staffers of all levels, and launched Outdoors Together, a publicly accessible view into the work we're doing to support BIPOC non-profits in the Bay Area, improve our internal processes, create new programs and offerings, and work to push the whole outdoor industry towards inclusion.August 2020
As if 2020 wasn't difficult enough, in August several complex wildfires ringed the entire Bay Area, burning for over a month. 2020 marked California's worst wildfire season in modern history; many, many homes were destroyed and far too many lives were taken. One of our General Managers, Rich De Borba, was evacuated from his Boulder Creek home, and wrote about his experiences on our website. The outpouring of support he received from our community was astounding and inspiring, and reminded us why we love the Bay Area so much.
July 2021
Back in 2019, we had set our sights on a soon-to-be updated wing of the Stonestown Galleria. Though development within the mall was put on pause at the beginning of the pandemic, we revved our engines in early 2021 and, learning from the speedy, efficient buildout of our Redwood City store, managed to open our third San Francisco store in mid-July.
September 2021
The pandemic caused us to think outside the box for new ways to serve our communities and help every Bay Area resident enjoy the outdoors. Enter: Sports Basement Pre-Loved! Basementeers can trade in their gently used gear and to earn store credit, and we're able to sell top quality outdoor gear for around 60% off MSRP. Plus, shopping used helps extend the lifespan of your gear and clothes, which is good for the Earth. It's a win-win-win!
October 2022
After years and years of consideration and research, we finally made one of the biggest decisions in Sports Basement history: we opened a store in Southern California, specifically in Fountain Valley in Orange County! Taking over 80,000 square feet of a former Fry's Electronics (you might remember that our Sunnyvale store also used to be a Fry's, so we've got a theme going here), we opened our doors right at the end of the month, taking everything we've learned about new store openings from Stonestown, Redwood City and all the others and turning it all up to eleven.
and on we go...
In the end, not all that much has changed at Sports Basement. We still strive to sell the best brands at Basement prices. We still keep the focus on our local communities, and are constantly looking for more ways to help. We still make all our own fixtures, and hand-draw as many signs as we can. You'll still find comfy couches in all our stores. And you'll still see Tom and Eric working on the sales floor.29 comments
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Monique Uhlberg says...
What a great article on your years in service! I was actually one of your very, very, very early customers who was referred by a friend’s friend (Jay) who gave me a little paper discount card to use to shop in your Mission Bay store. I am an avid SB patron. I tell everyone that your store is like Gucci to me. Congratulations on such a successful business model and thank you for everything you do in the community. All the best to you and your staff and Happy Holidays!
On December 28, 2020 -
Eric L says...
I have many fond memories of biking to work, all around the city, with the support of all you guys. Happy to have just picked up a great trucker hat that reads “Sports Basement.. truckin since 1998”. And yeah.. that was a bargain price, for a quality Otto lid, & completely reflects your generosity to this community. So looking forward to rocking it. You guys seriously truck!
On January 06, 2020 -
Alex Simonini says...
superb ski bus trip to Squaw yesterday (Dec 22) Pete and the team did an awesome job. You guy’s go the extra mile…And kudos to the bus driver he was a real professional! Great experience . We will be back!
On December 26, 2018 -
Peter C says...
Congrats. I’ve been going to you guys since the original store in Mission Bay. It’s nice to see such a friendly and customer-focused company thrive…..Keep me the good work..
On December 04, 2018 -
John McIntyre says...
So proud of you guys and the entire SB team! Been fun following your journey from the very first day. Congrats!
On November 28, 2018