This post has been corrected
Once mighty video-rental giant Blockbuster announced yesterday that it plans to close its remaining 300 stores and distribution centers in the US by mid-January (though some 50 franchises will remain open). The announcement raises a really interesting question: How is it possible that there are still so many Blockbuster locations?
Blockbuster declined to say where its remaining stores are, so Quartz wrote a script to analyze its online store locator. Despite the dueling trends of online streaming and video kiosk rentals that ultimately drove Blockbuster to bankruptcy, it turns out that, yes, it still has about 300 locations. To be precise, our script coughed up a list of 303 stores, which we’ve plotted on the map above.
Here are the states where Blockbuster has held out the longest. As the company is based in Dallas, it’s no surprise that Texas tops the list:
And here are the cities that have more than one location. Note that San Antonio, the reigning king of the dying brand, has more Blockbusters alone than 40 entire states:
Correction (Nov. 7): A previous version of the map at the top of this post stated that all 303 Blockbuster locations would be closing by next year. Only the locations owned and operated by Blockbuster will be closing; some 50 franchises and licensed stores will remain open.