LONDON, June 21 (Reuters) - Britain's biggest sporting goods retailer Sports Direct SPD.L has signed a deal to take over a British gym and is in talks to buy more, marking its entrance into the health ...

Branded Sports Direct Fitness, the gyms will initially open above new stores in Aintree and St Helens in Merseyside and Keighley in West Yorkshire. Membership is set to cost around £33 a month.

The retailer, controlled by billionaire Mike Ashley, is drawing up plans to create a 200-chain gym empire and a spokesman confirmed that the firm is now interested in all 50 of LA Fitness sites.

The Sports Direct Fitness gym in Bury St Edmunds is set to be converted into a store, according to fresh plans. K/S Cratfield, which owns the property in Easlea Road, on the Moreton Hall estate, has ...