Speaking Monday, September 14, at the Goldman Sachs’ Global Consumer and Retail Conference, Ed Stack, executive chairman,Dick’s Sporting Goods, said marketplace discussion of the athletic footwear cycle being over is “way overdone.” He said both the Dick’s and Foot Locker businesses stand to benefit as more brands are appealing to consumers and also sees innovation helping drive a recovery for Nike.
Stack stressed that the footwear performance the legacy Dick’s Business was “really very good” in the second quarter, but the athletic mall specialty business was “more challenged” in part because Foot Locker is “much more dependent” on launch retro shoes, such as classic Air Force 1.
The Dick’s Business was able to transition to brands such as On and Hoka that “have been great” to offset the weakness in legacy silhouettes, but Foot Locker “wasn’t able to do that,” Stck suggested.
Beyond Hoka and On, Stack said other brands, citing Saucony, Solomon, Asics, Timberland, Uggs and Birkenstock, are seeing revived demand or newfound momentum. He believes that’s positive in the long run for both the legacy Dick’s and Foot Locker businesses. Said Stack, “This business has just broadened out, which we really think is very good for us…There’s more alternatives for us to go to and build our business as opposed to having a small handful of brands that really dominated the industry.”
At the same time, Stack said some of the brands challenged by softness in legacy silhouettes have “some really interesting and great product in the pipeline,” including Nike. He said Nike’s Mind sensory footwear concept “has been terrific,” and he cited a “big opportunity” in basketball with “Ja,” Ja Morant’s shoe, and Caitlin Clark’s debut shoe.
He summed up overall athletic footwear trends, “So I think this is a moment in time where there’s a bit of a dip in the industry, but it’s far from a real long-term problem. And when you take a look at On and Hoka and some of these other brands that are out there, they’re doing extremely well.”
He nonetheless said the margin pressure “is real,” which led to Dick’s lowering its expectations for margins in the second half for both the Dick’s and Foot Locker’s businesses due to expected promotions, as well as its expectations for sales at Foot Locker for the full year. Academy Sports, JD Sports, Famous Footwear and Shoe Staion/Carnival are among other retail banners recently reporting softness in athletic footwear.
“The margin pressure is real as these legacy silhouettes have slowed down, and then some of the brands started discounting, and the discounting got pretty, pretty aggressive,” said Stack.
Stack said Dick’s made a strategic decision to discount, seeing the promotions that began in the second quarter as an “investment” in retention to keep customers heading to a competitor.
“We wanted that consumer to come back and shop with us at Christmas,” said Stack. “We want that consumer to shop with us in the spring for his or her baseball cleats, softball cleats, soccer cleats, other products. We didn’t want to be viewed as high-priced in the marketplace, and they get that mindset and don’t come back and shop with us. It was an investment in our business. We talk all the time that we make investments in our business, not for a quarter or two, but for a lifetime.”
Dick’s officials were also asked about the quick deceleration in the performance of Foot Locker, which saw pro-forma comparable sales increase 0.6 percent in the first quarter but then decline 3.6 percent in the second.
Stack said Foot Locker did “very well” with legacy silhouettes, including Jordan retro product, in the first quarter, but those styles “really slowed” across the marketplace in the second. He reiterated comments made on Dick’s second-quarter call that the promotional pressures are expected to continue through the end of the year to work down the legacy inventory.
He said consumers continue to respond to newness, even within the legacy styles. Stack elaborated, “If you take an Air Force 1 silhouette in a traditional triple white, triple black, or a traditional white shoe with the varsity colors, red, blue, black, those have slowed significantly. But a triple white Air Force 1 in patent leather, a triple white Air Force 1 in black – you can’t keep those in stock today. So it’s trying to get enough of those in the marketplace.”
Asked about the depth of the guidance cut at Foot Locker, Stack said EMEA’s performance for Foot Locker has worsened versus original expectations due to fallout from the war in the Middle East. But he said the “industry as a whole” has been surprised by the demand pullback in retro launch product and it’s “taking longer than we thought to pivot” to newer products. Stack added that major brands that were once hesitant to sell to Foot Locker are more supportive after the acquisition by Dick’s.
He said a basic problem is athletic footwear inventories across the industry are misaligned. Stack said, “The industry’s got a really interesting problem that is short-term, but they’ve got an overcapacity issue in some of the legacy silhouettes, and there’s an undercapacity issue on some of these new shoes that have come out that are really resonating with the consumer. There’s an imbalance going on right now, and we’re not able to get more of these shoes in based on manufacturing constraints as we would like.”
He reiterated that athletic footwear demand is “not the issue,” with newness in footwear seeing healthy sell-throughs.
Stack said, “If you’ve got something that’s new and innovative, that consumer will step into the plate to buy that product, whether you can see that from an On Cloudtilt shoe that’s really hot right now or what’s going on with the Nike Mind shoe. The Nike running construct from the nine-box between Pegasus, Structure and Vomero has been great. If there’s something new and different out there that the consumer views as different and innovative, it’s doing very well.”
He said Dick’s is seeing newness drive results and changes among brands in other categories as well, citing the success of baseball bat launches, as well as strong demand for newer activewear brands such as Vuori, Gymshark and Free People Movement that have been introduced to some doors. Stack said, “There’s a transition going on right now, and we’re right at the center of it, and I think we are extremely well-positioned.”
CEO Lauren Hobart said the lower earnings guidance for the year also reflects “some conservatism toward fuel costs and healthcare costs,” but she insisted the Dick’s legacy business is “very strong” and company officials remain “bullish on the entire business.”
He said demand at the Dick’s chain continues to be supported by strong underlying fundamentals around sport and health as well as the expanding appeal of sport culture, citing the recent buzz around the World Cup. He said, “Dick’s consumer is doing well. We did not see trade down from best to better or better to good. We saw growth across all income demographics. I think the Foot Locker consumer may be a little bit more under pressure.”
Stack noted there’s some investor concern that the “contagion” within Foot Locker’s weakness will spread to the footwear side at the legacy Dick’s business. He expects a limited impact on Dick’s banners because buyers were able to transition to other categories, citing Birkenstock, Ugg and Timberland.
He also still feels strongly about Dick’s opportunity in footwear across the traditional Dick’s and Foot Locker segments. He noted that Dick’s overall has five buying occasions to reach its “athletes,” or its consumers, including the shoe they wear while playing their sport; shoes for running, training and recovery; and a shoe that stands out for style. Stack adds, “You still have the shoe that the young man or young woman is going to wear to say who they are, what they are wearing to school, what they are wearing out with their buddies on a Friday night. There are five shoes that they really have under consideration. And between Dick’s and Foot Locker, we are the retailer best positioned to service that need.”
Stack said Foot Locker is typically “a little bit ahead” on trends given its “more fashion-conscious, faster customer,” enabling the core Dick’s business to get an early read on when a trend may be slowing. He noted, for example, that New Balance is “rocking” at the Dick’s chain but a “little bit difficult” at Foot Locker.
He added that with the addition of Foot Locker as well as the Going, Going, Gone! clearance business, the company now has “visibility to the entire ecosystem of athletic footwear.” He added, “To benefit, nobody else has that kind of visibility that we have. So we have built this ecosystem across the entire platform that nobody else has and will really positively impact our business.”
Image courtesy NRF 2026 Big Show / Jason Dixson Photography
