At an Analyst Day event in New York City, Academy Sports revealed a five-year plan to reach $8 billion in sales, largely through the opening of 125 new stores, while improving operating margins from 9 percent to 10 percent.
Under the plan, sales are expected to reach $8.0 billion by 2030, up from $6.1 billion in 2025, representing a 5 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate).
Opening 125 new stores is expected to add $1.9 million in revenues over the next five years, including benefits from omnichannel behavior such as increased BOPIS (buy-online, pick-up in-store sales) or growth from online drop-ship orders, CFO Carl Ford said at the event.
The growth translates to the opening of 25 stores annually, increasing Academy’s store base on average by 7 percent every year. Academy currently has 323 stores across 21 states. The new stores are expected to deliver between 12 million and $16 million in first-year sales.
Another $300 million in sales are expected to come from increasing e-commerce penetration to 15 percent of sales by 2030 from 12 percent currently. At that rate, online sales are projected to expand 70 percent over the next five years, boosted by search modernization and other e-commerce functionality upgrades, alternative marketplaces such as agentic-commerce platforms, online drop-ship expansion, online personalization efforts, and improved in-stocks.
Another $300 million in revenues is expected to come from the existing business through brand launches, enhanced customer loyalty programs and the launching of Academy’s retail media network. The revenue forecast includes a cushion of $500 million from potential negative headwinds.
Of the expansion in EBIT (earnings before interest & taxes) to 10 percent from 9 percent, about 50 basis points is expected to come in part from an expected low-single digit comp performance on average over those five years.
Ford said the comp growth will be supported by improved performance at the 63 stores opened over the past four years, and future new stores entering the comp base. Of the 63 opened stores, 39 were in the comp base at the close of 2025 with all 63 landing in the comp base by the close of 2026. Ford said once new stores lap their 14th months in operation and land in the comp set, they’re delivering on average growth of mid-single digits.
Ford said, “That penetration of new stores in the base is significant. It provides a meaningful waterfall associated with where we’re going from a comp perspective.”
Academy expects about 50 basis points of margin improvement from supply chain efficiencies. Transportation cost efficiencies are expected as most new stores will open in legacy markets or markets entered over the last five years. About 30 basis points of margins benefits are expected due to the expansion of its retail media network, supported by high-margin, vendor-supported marketing initiatives.
Expanding private label to 25 percent of the mix from approximately 22 percent or 23 percent currently and a mix shift towards soft lines is expected to deliver another 20 basis points of gross margin expansion
The EBIT margin targets still includes about 50 basis points in negative “headwinds” as Academy sees an opportunity “to give some value back to the customer.” Ford stressed the importance for Academy to retain its reputation for value. He said, “If we lose our everyday value proposition, we’ve lost our North Star associated with what it is that we do. So, this is a bridge of how we get from 9 percent to 10 percent, and we think it’s challenging but achievable.”
Steve Lawrence, CEO, said Academy’s strategies to expand the business haven’t changed but they’ve been refined. The three strategies include store expansion, improving the productivity of existing stores and driving outsized growth in its online business.
Lawrence said store expansion remains Academy’s “number one lever” to drive growth. However, he described a shift in real estate strategy based on early results in newer markets.
He compared a first-year $10 million store in Perimeter, Georgia with a first-year $16.5 million store in Searcy, Arkansas, saying Searcy outperformed because it more closely matched where Academy’s core customer lives. He said Academy is increasingly targeting outer suburbs, exurbs, and smaller markets with high concentrations of its “Always Game Family” customer, while also revisiting opportunities in legacy markets where population growth has expanded outward.
Under the plan, Lawrence said the 125-store pipeline is expected to be allocated about 40 percent in legacy states (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas), 40 percent in existing states (in market five years or more), and 20 percent in new markets. He also said Academy has adjusted its newer store prototype to roughly 50,000 to 55,000 square feet for the slightly smaller targeted markets.
He further pointed out that with the focus largely on legacy and existing markets, Academy no longer needs a fourth distribution center to support the five-year store plan, instead expecting to leverage its existing three-DC network.
Improving the productivity of existing stores is particularly important in driving comp growth, said Lawrence.
To improve store productivity, Academy is going deeper into some categories, including now offering a wide range of portable power solutions after traditionally only focusing on selling generators around disaster recovery, such as for a hurricane. Academy is also testing expanded pet offerings after traditionally only carrying a few options for hunting dogs. Car and garage organization is another expanding opportunity.
Academy will continue to build out its “good, better, best” offerings. Lawrence said it’s important to offer athletes a “way for them to progress from beginner to intermediate to advance.”
He said in the markets Academy serves, Walmart is a primary competitor, and they might carry a “half an aisle of fishing focused primarily on ‘good’ and the basics that you need from a fishing perspective.” Academy offers a lower-priced entry “good’ product in fishing with its H20x private-label line, but also offers ‘better” product such as Abu Garcia and ‘best” product in Shimano.
A consumer in Academy’s market often needs to drive an hour or two away to get a ‘better’ or ‘best’ product from a big-box competitor in the outdoor space. The CEO said, “Having these stores more conveniently located cuts away the need for a lot of those trips and wins on locational convenience.”
On merchandising, Lawrence also cited a focus on delivering a “steady diet of newness.” He cited Academy’s introduction and expansion of the Jordan Brand, its partnership to become the exclusive brick-and-mortar partner for training equipment in the U.S. for HYROX, and push into baseball lifestyle culture with trending brands such as Baseball Lifestyle 101, Dirty Mids, and Bruce Bolt.
He said noted that Academy is bringing Brooks apparel into its stores for the first time, introducing Chicken Legs running apparel, expanding Birkenstock to over 200 doors, and expanding premium running footwear from brands like Nike under the Vomero platform and Adidas under EVO SL.
In outdoor, Academy is establishing suppressor in-store shops in over 100 stores by the back half of the year in a partnership with Silencer Shop. It’s also launching a “best in class fully-loaded” hunting rifle under a private label Redfield and adding the premium camo brand, First Lite.
Chief Customer Officer Chad Fox detailed customer-focused initiatives intended to boost engagement, repeat trips, and digital penetration. Fox said Academy has built a first-party dataset of more than 50 million unique and verified marketable customer profiles with “over 500 derived attributes.”
Fox said the company’s myAcademy Rewards program, launched about 18 months ago, ended last year with over 13 million members. He said approximately 30 percent of active customers are members and they represent about 45 percent of sales.
Academy has begun rolling out an enhanced “2.0” version of the program, including a merged loyalty and private label credit card structure into a three-tier program. Changes include a $500 threshold that earns customers $25 in their digital wallet and the introduction of a myAcademy Rewards Mastercard offering 2 percent cash back on everyday spending outside Academy that can be used back in stores. Fox said customers who are loyalty members and cardholders spend 3.5 times more than the average customer, while customers shopping both in-store and online spend two times more than store-only customers.
On e-commerce, Fox emphasized “fundamentals” work, including item master data governance, automated vendor data workflows, AI-driven content enrichment, and a planned migration to more semantic and agentic search. He also highlighted use of AI to generate on-model imagery for private brand apparel, citing internal test results of increased views, conversion, and orders. Fox said Academy’s “Scout” AI shopping bot delivered a higher conversion rate and higher average order values for users compared with standard search during the holiday season.
Academy also forecast that it expects first-quarter sales to climb between 6 percent and 7 percent, with comparable sales in the range of 2 percent to 3 percent.
In the Q&A session, Lawrence said the business began to “inflect” ahead of last Christmas and has been “fairly consistent positive” since then, aside from a brief storm-related disruption in late January. He said performance has been broad-based and noted baseball as one area performing particularly well. Lawrence also said all four divisions ran positive in February and that strength continued into March.
Photo courtesy Academy Sports
