A new retailing force opened in the heart of Dublin city on Monday, after Mike Ashley’s new Sports Direct/USC megastore threw open its doors in the old Boyers building just off O’Connell Street. How will indigenous competitors react?
Ashley, who also controls Heatons chain of department stores, has long sought a beachhead in the Irish market for his sports retailing empire. He was rumoured last year to be sniffing around the Clerys building, before eventually plumping for the Boyers building at €12 million.
Heatons is a successful investment in its own right, but its retail footprint never gave Sports Direct the sort of profile Ashley needed to make a real splash in the Irish sportswear market.
Now he has what he wanted: a prominent, large-scale site in the heart of the capital city, guaranteed profile and the opportunity to really take on incumbents such as Elverys and Lifestyle Sports.
Youth fashion chain
The Boyers building was probably too large for a standalone sports store, however. So Ashley has chosen to co-locate it with USC, a youth fashion chain that his company bought out of insolvency.
USC is a new brand in the Irish market and, it must be said, a challenging name to promote in an Irish context – it is reminiscent of the the universal social charge, one of the most notorious and resented taxes in the State.
It could only have been more difficult for Ashley had he opened a store in Dublin’s north inner city named Water Charges.
Leonard Brassel, the managing director of Heatons and Sports Direct, said this week that the new Dublin Sports Direct/USC megastore is "a key part of our ongoing and ambitious store expansion programme for Ireland in 2017".
That sounds ominous for the Irish competitors to Ashley’s aggressively competitive company. Brexit and the weakness of sterling may work in favour of the indigenous operators, however.
Unless Ashley can fund the rollout of Sports Direct from the euro cashflow of Heatons, he will be at a currency disadvantage if the capital for the plan has to come from his UK company’s sterling coffers.
