Academy Buys Redfield

Leupold and Stevens sell Redfield brand to Academy Sports and Outdoors for undisclosed amount.

BEAVERTON, Ore. (April 13, 2021) — Leupold & Stevens, Inc., provider of the world’s most rugged, lightweight, and clear sport optics, is pleased to announce the sale of the Redfield brand to Academy Sports + Outdoors (“Academy”) (NASDAQ: ASO).

“The sale of Redfield to Academy Sports + Outdoors is part of our continued strategic focus on the Leupold brand,” said Bruce Pettet, President and Chief Executive Officer of Leupold & Stevens, Inc. “We will continue to produce the world’s best performance optics for the elite outdoor athlete.”

The sale includes the brand rights for the Redfield brand of sports optics. Academy will develop and sell quality sports optics exclusively for Academy Sports + Outdoors under the Redfield brand going forward. Leupold will continue to support the warranty obligations for any legacy purchases of Redfield optics.

Redfield will join Academy’s portfolio of exclusive brands which already includes outdoor brands like Magellan Outdoors, Monarch, H2O Xpress, and Game Winner.

Academy is a leading full-line sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer in the United States. Originally founded in 1938 as a family business in Texas, Academy has grown to 259 stores across 16 contiguous states.

Academy's mission is to provide "Fun for All" and fulfills this mission with a localized merchandising strategy and value proposition that strongly connects with a broad range of consumers. Academy's product assortment focuses on the key categories of outdoor, apparel, footwear and sports & recreation, which goes well beyond traditional sporting goods and apparel offerings.

Founded in Oregon more than a century ago, Leupold & Stevens, Inc. is a fifth-generation, family-owned company that designs, machines and assembles its riflescopes, mounting systems, tactical/Gold Ring spotting scopes, and performance eyewear in the USA. The product lines include rifle, handgun and spotting scopes; binoculars; rangefinders; mounting systems; and optical tools, accessories, and pro gear.

Interesting stuff. This will probably cement the public perception that the Redfield brand represents entry level, low cost products.

I thought Redfield was already well cemented as representing entry level, low cost products.

The big question is will they still be made in USA?

100% they will be made in China.

Up until the early to mid 1990's Redfield was seen as a direct competitor of Leupold. When I bought my first rifle in 1997 they had started to lose steam but were still very high quality scopes. I considered buying one to put on my new to me rifle but ended up getting a Leupold for my birthday instead. My how things have changed!!!! Never thought I would see the day that a leading scope manufacturer in its day would become a house brand for a big box sporting goods store.

I actually have a couple of vintage Redfields and they are solid scopes. The glass cant compete with todays glass but still very solid scopes and they mate well with vintage rifles.

Sorry to hear that, Denver Redfield's were a solid scope back in “the day” yeah they weren’t high end scopes but they were a good value. I have several “Redpold” Revolution scopes and thought they made a pretty decent 4-12 scope for under $300, and was one of my recommendations to friends wanting a sub $300 scope. Sad to see that an established name will be used to hawk sub par chinese crap now.

I actually love Academy and hope they will do great with this acquisition. I think they're business deals, like Yildiz and some Igloo products, tend to be very good for a consumer like me. Hopefully they do avoid making them in China.

100 bucks says they move all production to China. The Leupold owned Redfield binoculars I bought a couple years ago were made there. Makes you wonder if Leupold is going to honor the lifetime warranty on they Redfield products they built and sold.

Pretty sure it’s all there already

Redfield just went farther down the crapper, can’t get much deeper now.

Redfield binoculars are darn good for what ne pays for them.

Leupold's President & CEO needs to stop lying. Leupold has never produced the world's best performance optics. Never!

He not lying, at one time he was probably spot on.

When people say, "they used to make good stuff back in the day" I hear "that's as good as it got back in the day, we didn't know any better".

yep

Probably not far off. Leupold, Weaver and Redfield worked pretty good back in the day before we found out we needed much more expensive scopes with a lot more bells and whistles. Just a bunch of dumb Neanderthals killing big game.

Maybe America's best optics, but Leupold has never been better than Swarovski, Kahles, Zeiss or many other European optics.

It’s just marketing BS like the world’s best pizza or world’s best cup of coffee. Been going on forever.

Sorry to hear this, Redfield was one of the last US made scopes that was not Tacticool. If you have an older vintage rifle the newer scopes just ....Aint Right.
Well so it goes

They been made light option in Japan or in the Philippines.

Good buy for KBR. Glad to see a big retailer embrace hunting and shooting sports instead of being like Dicks that canceled a complete segment of shooting sports and hunting.

They will do the same with it as they did with All Star Rods.
They will import a cheap Chinese scope and put Redfield on it.
A person will be better off buying a Bushnell Banner.

All star already had a china line well before they sold out.

I think all the rod guys like kistler, mccain, loomis etc are brilliant personally. Build it, up sale it and wait out non-compete and start up another company. Gary Loomis is on his what third or fourth rod company. Now I did hate to see American Rod smith get sold, was a great family.

I've got a pair of Redfield binos that are really solid. They were bought maybe 7 or 8 years ago.

I love Academy. They have definitely made things more affordable and easier to get.

I would not be surprised to see a rebadged Bushnell version of a Redfield scope. I am sure they will not be as good as they were, but probably still pretty decent.

It is kind of hard for me to sit there and take a shot at anything made in China anymore. We are importing pretty much everything from everywhere except USA. ESPECIALLY optics.

It ain't hard for me to take a shot at 'em.

😎