Beauty
Sport Clips Franchise
A men's and boys' hair care franchise built around a sports-themed in-store environment, with a television at every cutting station tuned to live or recorded sports programming. Sport Clips, Inc. was incorporated in Texas in 1995 and has operated stores of this type since 1993; it has sold franchises since November 1995. Franchised unit count declined in both 2024 and 2025 after growing slightly in 2023, while company-owned units grew steadily across the same period.
Every franchisor has to file a document called an FDD before they can legally sell you a franchise. Buried in it are the two things a sales rep won't volunteer: what you'll actually spend to open, and whether existing locations are opening or closing. That's what's below, pulled straight from Sport Clips's own filing.
What it costs to open
From the filing's investment breakdown -- not a "starting at" number a sales rep quoted you.
Franchise fee
$30,000
Total to open
$236,800–$580,500
Ongoing royalty
6% of gross sales
What you'd actually spend, over time
The upfront cost is only part of it. Plug in what you expect a location to bring in, and see the real total once royalties over a few years are added on top.
Defaulted to a rough beauty industry average, not a figure from Sport Clips's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$386,800 – $730,500
Startup investment
$236,800–$580,500
Royalty per year (6%)
$30,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$150,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Sport Clips's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical beauty profit margin (~10%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.
Defaulted to a general beauty industry benchmark, not a figure from Sport Clips's own filing -- this is a starting point to adjust, not a promise about what franchisees actually make.
At that profit, you'd break even in about
4.7–11.6 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Sport Clips is currently losing locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.
Is Sport Clips actually growing?
Franchisors have to report, every year, how many locations opened, closed, or changed hands. Most franchise sites never show you this. Here it is:
Locations opened vs. closed, by year
ShrinkingFrom Item 20 of Sport Clips's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 1,781 | 1,785 | +4 |
| 2024 | 1,785 | 1,732 | -53 |
| 2025 | 1,732 | 1,702 | -30 |
Most recent year (2025): lost 30 franchised units, ending the year at 1,702 total.
What you're actually signing up for
The cost and growth numbers above are only part of the picture. These three FDD items are the ones a prospective franchisee tends to weigh most heavily once they're past the sticker price.
Training & ongoing support (Item 11)
Item 11: site review and approval (minimum trade area of 25,000 people), pre-opening specifications for construction and equipment, and mandatory Supplemental Pre-Opening Services under a separate fee-based agreement described in Item 5.
Territory protection (Item 12)
Item 12: a genuine exclusive territory during the initial 5-year term -- the lesser of a 1-mile radius or a 25,000-population radius -- within which Sport Clips won't sell franchises or open company stores; after the initial term the franchisee keeps only a first-right-of-refusal on that territory, not exclusivity.
Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)
Item 17: 5-year term, renewable for additional 5-year terms if in good standing, requiring a then-current agreement (potentially on materially different terms), required training, a renewal fee, and remodeling.
How Sport Clips compares to other Beauty franchises
Across the 6 beauty franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $336,685–$611,053, with royalties averaging around 6% of gross sales (based on the 6 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).
Keep going
- Sport Clips and Supercuts are both beauty franchises; Supercuts's total investment starts about $50,870 lower than Sport Clips's. Supercuts Franchise
- Sport Clips and Great Clips are both beauty franchises; Great Clips's total investment starts about $53,400 lower than Sport Clips's. Great Clips Franchise
Where this came from: MN CARDS file 5263, Clean FDD issued April 1, 2026, filed 3/31/2026, effective 4/16/2026. Item 5: $30,000 for a single-store Franchise Agreement (bundled multi-unit pricing under a Multi-Unit Development Addendum runs up to $69,500 for 3 stores; the automated parser mistakenly picked up the $15,000 price charged only to existing franchisees adding a 4th-or-later store). Item 6: royalty is 6% of Net Sales, plus Advertising of $300/week or 5% of Net Sales (whichever is more), a Training Fee of roughly 1% of Net Sales, a Stylist Recruitment Fee of 1%, and a Technology Fee of 1% -- a notably fee-heavy weekly structure beyond the headline royalty and ad rates. Item 7 Total: $236,800-$580,500 (excludes real estate, royalties, and Marketing Fund contributions; the reported median investment to open one store was $399,757). Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-04-16. None of this is investment advice -- get the franchisor's current FDD and talk to a real attorney or accountant before you sign anything.
If you see a different unit count elsewhere: franchisors only have to refile their FDD annually, so the numbers here can run 6–18 months behind a franchisor's own real-time marketing claims -- which often aren't independently verified, and sometimes count signed-but-not-yet-open locations. A gap isn't necessarily an error on either side; it's two different snapshots in time from two different sources.