2 Sports Authority Stores Near South Brunswick to Close

South Brunswick, NJ - Both the East Brunswick Sports Authority and the Sports Authority in Manalapan were announced Thursday as on the list of stores that will close as giant retailer files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Unfortunately for South Brunswick customers, those were the two locations nearest South Brunswick township. The next closest store is in Flemington.

Sports Authority is closing 140 of its 463 stores nationwide, and five of those are in New Jersey. On Wednesday, the company revealed it was $1.1 billion in debt. Store managers were reportedly told Feb. 11 their stores would be closed. Store managers at both stores declined to talk to a Patch reporter.

Currently, there are 21 Sports Authority stores in New Jersey. The five that will close are:

2139 Route 38 in Cherry Hill

300 State Route 18 in East Brunswick

55 US Highway 9 in Manalapan

1327 Centennial Ave in Piscataway

81 Willowbrook Blvd in Wayne (Willowbrook Mall)

Sports Authority revealed the list of the 140 stores on the chopping block in a bankruptcy filing, made publicly available Thursday. Liquidation sales at those stores may begin Friday if a judge approves the company's bankruptcy claim, reports USA Today.

An estimated 3,400 of its 15,000 employees will be affected by the store closures nationwide. Sports Authority was once the largest sport retailer in the nation, but has been surpassed by Dick's Sporting Goods. Sports Authority is also losing sales to Amazon.

Photo credit: BrokenSphere - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10847439