The 97% Decline That Smelled Like Opportunity: How a Meme Stock Became Private Equity Target
Investment firm Capitol Hill Group's consolidation of American sporting goods retail stores, that started with Worldwide Golf, has continued with the acquisition of recent meme stock Big 5.
The Wedge is a project by Shane Breslin, brand writer and brand messaging consultant. Transforming a business a media empire requires the kind of strategic storytelling that transforms complex business moves into compelling narratives that drive attention, interest and growth. If your business needs content and storytelling that creates competitive advantage, let's talk.
Let’s go back a bit.
Let’s go back, to be precise, to November 12, 2021.
That day, Big 5 Sporting Goods — NASDAQ ticker $BGFV — closes at $44.12 per share. In less than 18 months — a year and a half that saw retail investors, many of them convening around amateur trading discussions on Reddit — the BGFV stock had climbed from less than $3 a share.
That November day, some Reddit traders and other retail stock purchasers are celebrating the latest in a series of roll-ups that included entertainment chain AMC and, most notably, the GameStop saga that would soon get the Hollywood treatment. The meme stock machine is humming at full throttle, and Big 5 is right there in the middle of it.
Fast forward to this summer. June 30, 2025. That same stock gets acquired and, after more than two decades as a publicly traded company, returns to private hands … for just $1.45 per share.
All in all, a 97% decline from its peak.
If any of those retail traders were still adopting the “diamond hands” strategy — in a nutshell, do not sell, but hold on for dear life — they will have watched their paper-wealth portfolios evaporate.
Meanwhile, a different kind of investor was watching.
Waiting.
Calculating.
And ready to pounce.
Capitol Hill Group, led by Theodore Shin, just closed a $112.7 million acquisition that transforms Big 5 from public market volatility into private equity value.
It's just the latest chapter in one of the most methodical retail consolidation plays you've probably never heard of. And golf retail lies at the heart of it.
Corporate Hemorrhaging = Investor Opportunity
The Big 5 story starts like a cautionary tale about market euphoria, and ends as a masterclass in opportunistic investing.
Back in 2021, Big 5 had everything meme stock traders loved:
heavy short interest (more than a third of its total share count was sold short)
a beaten-down retail name, not unlike GameStop
and the perfect storm of pandemic-driven outdoor recreation demand.
When the famed subreddit r/WallStreetBets discovered BGFV as one of the target tickers under the gold standard GameStop and AMC crusades, the stock exploded from under $2 to nearly $48 in little over a year.
Back then, the real state of play seemed to support the hype. The 53-week fiscal year of 2020, for example, brought net sales through the $1 billion barrier, and same store sales increased on 2019 … even though long periods of 2020 brought lockdowns that saw many stores closed for long stretches.
As investing platform Seeking Alpha posted at the time:
In 2020, Big 5 was a big Covid winner. Americans rediscovered their love for the great outdoors and with that demand for fitness and sporting goods surged. This demand boom has been much longer in both duration and magnitude than most initially suspected, especially by the shorts.
…
[T]o illustrate how transformational FY 2020 was for Big 5, its cash flow from operating activities moved from $14.3 million (FY 2019) to $148.7 million (FY 2020), or a 10 fold increase.
But meme stocks tend not to care about sustainable business models. They care about momentum. And when that momentum turns around, gravity can hit quickly and brutally.
In 2023, Big 5’s same-store sales down 11.2% for the full year. The 2024 full-year accounts brought more pain: revenue fell more than 10% to $795.5 million, same-store sales declined a further 9.4%, and the company posted a crushing $69.1 million net loss with negative $36.7 million adjusted EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization, one of the standard accounting measures of a business’s performance].
By August 2024, the retail investors were fleeing.
“Just walk into one,” wrote one user on Reddit. “Last year's shoes. Dirty as shit.”
Another added: “Big 5 used to be solid, now most of their stuff is off brand cheap basic hobby dad sports level gear. Their stores are very dated and so cluttered. How they have survived this like blows my mind…”
While they were running away, some sophisticated money was starting to pay close attention.
Two CEOs, One Winning Strategic Vision
Step forward Capitol Hill Group, the Bethesda, Maryland-based investment firm, which alongside the Worldwide Golf group — which Capitol Hill acquired in 2021 — to take Big 5 private last week in what appears to be a cut-price deal that surely points to the bind the retail conglomerate had found itself in.
Capitol Hill Group is under the leadership of Theodore Shin, who has been CEO since 2014.
And Shin appears to be “business of golf” to the backbone.
He took degrees in law and finance followed by an MBA in Finance, Accounting & Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Per his LinkedIn, he is a member of the Board of Advisors at a range of organizations, including a number of golf country clubs as well as the Fore All Club women’s golf apparel and participation initiative.
At Capitol Hill Group he has been leading the execution of a thesis that seems to go against conventional wisdom: while investors chase tech unicorns and software margins, Capitol Hill have been systematically buying brick-and-mortar retail stores (amongst other diversified holdings).
When Capitol Hill acquired Worldwide Golf four years ago, Shin became CEO of that company too — but he kept Al Morris, the four-decade operational veteran, as President & CEO, likely to continue to oversee day-to-day operations.
Morris had started with Worldwide Golf way back in 1984, the year the company was founded by Craig McCallister in San Diego. He began as a “gripper” — the bottom rung of the golf retail corporate ladder — and worked his way up to become head of what would become one of the world’s landmark golf retail platforms. While Shin and Capitol Hill Group provide the strategic vision and capital, Morris brings the hard-won retail DNA, and the complementary skills seem to be a perfect recipe.
In a profile posted on the website of the National Golf Foundation a number of years ago, Morris outlined a simple retail philosophy:
“Our attitude is — it is really hard to get a customer, do whatever you can not to lose them.”
That philosophy translated into things like Worldwide Golf's signature 90-day satisfaction guarantee and the kind of retail experience that gets professional golfers like former world number one Jason Day calling the Santa Ana flagship store of Worldwide’s Roger Dunn brand “the most iconic store in the world of golf”.
Can Golf Retail Skills Transfer to Sporting Goods?
High-street and shopping mall stores globally have long been going through a form of "retail apocalypse” which has killed many chains in all retail sectors, but golf retail has been standing up well, and for specific reasons: custom fitting technology, experiential elements that are almost impossible to replicate digitally, and strong relationships between on-the-ground experts and customers who need guidance before they swipe their card for equipment that’s often complex and expensive.
That Roger Dunn 63,000-square-foot Santa Ana store exemplifies this approach: inside its doors you’ll find five vendor-specific hitting bays, an eight-bay driving range and a 2,000-square-foot putting green, making it an experience that builds customer loyalty in ways even the global tech commerce leader Amazon will struggle to replicate.
With this in mind, Big 5's 414 stores — located all across the wester half of the US, from Washington state to Texas and Idaho to southern California — weren’t just distressed assets.
They were strategically valuable distressed assets, especially when they were going for a song to the right buyer.
Seventy years old in 2025, Big 5’s heavy concentration in California (where it has 220+ stores) and western states created an immediate geographic alignment with Worldwide Golf's existing footprint, which has been built up over 60-plus years, covers 25 states and includes a range of well-known golf retail brands such as The Golf Mart, Golfers’ Warehouse, Van’s Golf Shops, Uinta Golf, Edwin Watts Golf and Roger Dunn Golf Shops.
Big 5's customer base and vendor relationships in broader sporting goods could also expand Capitol Hill Group's addressable market beyond the golf audience.
While Others Failed, Smart Money Thrived
The sporting goods retail landscape tells two completely different stories depending on who's telling it.
Consider the market leader, whose story has been markedly different to that of Big 5.
In its 2024 full-year financial report, Dick's Sporting Goods reported record results:
$13.4 billion in revenue
5.2% comparable sales growth
earnings per share of $14.05 (up 15% from 2023).
Dick’s now operates 856 stores and plans to open 16 additional House of Sport locations and 18 Field House locations in 2025. It has also invested heavily in golf retail: its Golf Galaxy division now operates 109 stores, including 24 Golf Galaxy Performance Centers that emphasize experiential golf retail.
Dick's acquired Golf Galaxy for $225 million in 2006 and Golfsmith's assets for $70 million in 2016, building a golf platform that now contributes handsomely to those multi-billion-dollar net sales.
Meanwhile, Big 5 sits the other side of the fence: operational inefficiencies, lack of capital for necessary technology investments and unable to compete with large-scale competition — all leading to an in-store experience that sparks such withering criticism on Reddit as “off brand cheap basic hobby dad” and “dirty as shit”.
But still, golf retail specifically benefits from physical store advantages that are hard to replicate online.
Some industry data estimates that as much as three-quarters of golf equipment sales still happen in physical stores, where expert guidance, custom fitting and try-before-you-buy all combine to create the added value to justify the store trip.
Capitol Hill's contrarian bet might be summed up as: Let’s apply the proven golf retail model to distressed sporting goods assets.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out.
The $272,000-Per-Store Bargain
The numbers for the acquisition point to just how distressed Big 5 had become. $112.7 million enterprise value for 414 stores equals roughly $272,000 per store — a fraction of what it would cost to build equivalent retail infrastructure from scratch.
What would less $300,000 pick up in retail real estate? A kiosk in a decent mall, perhaps?
In contrast, the most recent investor relations data posted by Big 5 showed that their stores average 12,000 square feet each, many of them in established western markets, with existing customer relationships and vendor partnerships — even if those relationships and partnerships are ripe for new management and new investment. The assets acquired by Capitol Hill Group and Worldwide Golf will also include Big 5’s 953,000-square-foot distribution center in Riverside, California.
That infrastructure would take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate, with no guarantee you could make it happen.
Big 5 had the assets and no money. Capitol Hill Group had the money and wanted the assets. Cue an opportunistic investment that looks like exceptional value.
[I wrote a little about this type of opportunistic investing here recently, covering how UK-based vehicle Arrow Global specialized in “opportunistic investments” — ranging from real estate to ceramic floors to the ultimate opportunistic investment: distressed loans — before moving into golf resorts as the next rung on the investment ladder.]
The strategy of Capitol Hill and Worldwide Golf appears to be simple: identify assets trading below replacement cost, acquire them and apply operational expertise and rigor, and then watch as new value is created through improved management and strategic positioning.
Big 5's stock price tanked, but its assets were far from worthless.
They were just mispriced by a market that couldn't see past the financial distress to the underlying strategic value.
The 509-Store Empire
The new combined entity, Worldwide Golf alongside Big 5, creates an alliance of more than 500 stores spanning large tranches of the United States and creating one of the largest sporting goods retail networks in the country. (Market leader Dick’s Sporting Goods has a total of 856 stores as of the end of 2024, including those 109 Golf Galaxy outlets.)
In California alone, the combined footprint of Big 5 and Worldwide Golf now creates a dominant position with 270+ stores, the sort of density that should allow sophisticated logistics, shared services and the kind of operational efficiencies that independent retailers could never hope to match.
Worldwide Golf's multi-brand approach — preserving regional identities like Roger Dunn in California, Edwin Watts in Florida (amongst other states), and Van's Golf Shops in Arizona — could create something of a template for managing Big 5's integration.
Rather than imposing a single brand identity, Capitol Hill can leverage Big 5's established market presence while implementing operational improvements and the customer service standards that have made Worldwide Golf and its sub-brands successful for well over half a century.
Patient Capital
Capitol Hill Group’s approach reflects a broader trend in private equity: patient capital deployment in sectors others have written off. (The heading on the homepage of the firm’s website says it quietly and clearly: “Thoughtful Investments”.)
While venture capital chases software margins and tech valuations, Shin and Capitol Hill have been building a different kind of value creation machine:
Buy in fragmented retail markets
Preserve local expertise and customer relationships
Layer in operational improvements and technology where it makes sense
Create density and scale advantages that independent operators can't match
The Big 5 acquisition seems to fit this playbook perfectly:
First, take a distressed public company beaten down by market volatility
Second, apply operational expertise developed through years of successful previous acquisitions
And third, leverage geographic proximity and economies of scale to create value way beyond the sum of parts
Sporting goods stores, including big box golf retail, might not shout sexy or generate breathless headlines on TechCrunch. It might not come with billion-dollar valuations or — when the shit hits the fan — an impossible-to-refuse invitation to testify at Congress.
Theodore Shin, Capitol Hill Group and their Worldwide Golf arm have settled on something most retail traders, unicorn-chasers and diamond-hands-to-the-moon 🚀 meme stock enthusiasts never seem to grasp.
Find a real business, that creates real value, by serving real customers, and serving them well. Rinse and repeat.
Big 5's 97% stock price decline was seen by many as a catastrophe.
To others it was an invitation.
Capitol Hill Group just RSVP'd.
Does your business have a story worth telling? Does your brand messaging need the type of clarity that drives real results? The Wedge is a publication by Shane Breslin, content marketing and brand writing expert. I help ambitious leaders and brands find their genuine voice and then bring it to the world. I offer comprehensive brand messaging audits, CEO / executive ghostwriting that positions you as the authority in your space and new brand writing, everything from the heading on your homepage to the 25,000-word book you want to write. I deliver exceptional written storytelling that creates exceptional outcomes for your business. Find out more about my work and services here.