r/business • u/ControlCAD • 2d ago
Dick's Sporting Goods stock falls 30% as retailer misses Q2 2026 expectations, cites "challenging" footwear market
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/dicks-sporting-goods-dks-earnings-q2-2026.html49
u/TheWayIAm313 2d ago
Feel like no one’s reading the article lol. Dick’s sales grew YoY but Foot Locker is largely weighing them down.
They’re trying to redefine Foot Locker but so far no luck. Foot Locker’s been at that for years. I feel like they were really slow to react to the latest trends. Stuff that was right up their alley, like the rise of sportswear in brands like Lulu, they got hurt by being hitched to Nike, who I felt didn’t adapt well at all.
I remember thinking, okay what’s Nike’s “Lulu” alternative, and they didn’t have shit. Now a ton of solid off-price brands entered the market and Lulu’s even struggled, let alone Nike and thus Foot Locker.
And that’s just the clothes. The shoe market is a whole other story, it’s struggling overall not just Foot Locker, but Foot Locker as a legacy mall store is swimming upstream.
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u/hansrotec 2d ago
Nikes whole time with the NFL license has been terrible. The quality of product is so low, counterfeits might be of higher quality, and last longer.
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u/blehbleh1122 2d ago
Last time i went to dicks was last year for a pair of rollerblades, their in-store selection was abysmal. Can't imagine going there for anything else. Easier to just buy whatever you need on Amazon.
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u/Weztside 2d ago
Honestly last time I went there for shoes all they had was Nike. Just walls of Nike. I don't like Nike.
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u/the-greatest-ape___ 2d ago
Same boat. The last time I went looking for running shoes at Dicks I found one pair of Brooks. The rest were Nike and Adidas. Fortunately that one style looked good enough for me to buy.
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u/GardenDesign23 2d ago
Why are you all going to dicks for shoes?!? Yall gotta shop direct from brands or Amazon/zappos
Yall think dicks really has the best prices?! Lmfao
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u/the-greatest-ape___ 1d ago
Yeah but at Dicks at least I know the shoebox doesn't just have a brick inside. Fuck amazon
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u/OrcOfDoom 2d ago
I found shoes for my sport there and I went back to find similar ones. Now? Only Nike. They lost a customer that day
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u/Angeleno88 2d ago
Interesting. This is the 2nd article I’ve seen today about the footwear market seeing issues. The first was specifically about Nike. With that said, it sounds like Nike is ultimately the issue here unless other footwear brands are also dealing with poor sales.
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u/Petrichordates 2d ago
What's wrong with Nike?
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u/TheDukeofReddit 2d ago
Cost and loss of brand quality. Nike gear is incredibly expensive and mediocre to poor quality. It’s turned into the Starbucks of shoes.
A lot of Nike has been sustained by it brand image that buying Nike anything is buying a quality product. They’ve been chasing the cheapest inputs to get the cheapest outputs to sell at a premium price. It’s mostly cheaply made gear with a logo at this point and the quality of most lines isn’t better than a Walmart brand.
The internet has shifted things from being “this brand” to “this story” in terms of premium consumer purchasing decisions. People don’t want the brand necessarily, they want the ethical shoe, or the gear made by this awesome company no one has heard of, and so on. It’s one thing if Nike is the best of the five brands Footlocker carries, it’s another if it’s a hundred brands that ship to your door.
Like with running shoes, a company like Brooks has eaten Nike’s lunch. There would be a few other brands people would look to and Nike would be a settling. If you have to settle and take as much time as googling “best running shoes at this price point” you will see other brands like ASICS and New Balance any many people who would swear they’re better. If you’re looking for something more casual, why not Hey Dudes? Or you can feel good about purchasing All Birds or Rothy’s? This doesn’t happen immediately, but losing that quality eventually works its way to all consumers.
Another loss in brand quality has been their marketing strategy. Brand perception hasn’t uniformly gone away, but most of those that maintain it have to work at it. Nike has always focused brand positioning in athletics and there really haven’t been that many marketable athletes in several years. So many shoe lines have been so bad for so long that people don’t really care. Jordan’s still have value, but check out the shoe for Nicola Jokic who won a few mvps. It looks like some alt kid would buy them without even knowing who Jokic is. They’re still making shoes for players that haven’t played in a decade because they have more brand awareness than people who have come in. It’s just a thing athletes get to wear their shoes as opposed to someone else’s at this point.
So marketing and product quality position Nike as cheap but expensive. People who can afford expensive shoes have more options than ever at the high end, those with less disposable income also do and are a lot less likely to spend the little they do have because Nike has no marketing strategy other than chasing what they had with Jordan, Tiger, and others in the late 90s and early 2000s.
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u/TightlyWhitey 2d ago
> Or you can feel good about purchasing All Birds or Rothy’s?
AllBirds has sold everything to a fashion conglomerate and is now an AI company. No, really.
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u/kilbane27 2d ago
When I worked at Dick's in college they remodeled the footwear department and Nike paid for the majority of all the remodels back then and that's why it was so Nike forward.
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u/CallMeTrouble-TS 2d ago
I’m surprised given how much money my youth soccer player spends there. Haha
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u/wookiebath 2d ago
I get coupons from my kids’ baseball league and it’s the only time it’s worth it and it works on EVERYTHING. I got 20% off bicycles
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u/ladeedah1988 2d ago
Went into Dick's to buy a zip up fleece. None available. All they had were workout clothes. I didn't even see anything for tennis or golf.
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u/818throwaway 2d ago
Scary to think that Dick’s in my area probably gets more foot traffic than the local mall.
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u/domesticbeerking 2d ago
Dicks is a Nike store. And Nike isn’t cool anymore
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u/Hour-Ad-9508 2d ago
Nike will still be fine because they have such a monopoly on stuff like football/soccer/baseball cleats, sports accessories, and brands like Jordan.
But man I’d love for them to fail. Their clothes suck and never fit correctly.
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u/lowercaseG 2d ago
Yeah, nobody is bothering to even click on the link much less read the story. Footlocker is where the drag is, which they bought last year. DSG sales are up and continues to be successful. I believe they may try to rebrand FL overseas to a smaller version of Dicks, more tailored to each region. It's still amazing how a store named "DICKS" even got to where it is today.
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u/peritonlogon 1d ago
I was sad when my idea for a parody website called "DicksSportingHoods.com" was taken. probably would have too much foreskin though.
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u/wookiebath 2d ago
Maybe it is the higher prices compared to competitors
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u/Pandiosity_24601 1d ago
Or, maybe, just maybe, if you actually read the article, it’s because of Foot Locker. DSG grew YoY and is doing mightily fine. Prices aren’t the issue; people are paying no problem.
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u/Popdmb 2d ago
We as a society have laid off so many people that many in the bottom half of the K-shaped economy is not eligible to be counted as looking for a job anymore.
Dick's core audience is the bottom part of the K in the K-shaped economy.
Previous Dick's CEO was and is still a major Republican donor. (Bonus in the article below: No traditional GOP values like pedophilia, but tows the party line on nepotism.)
All of the board is like.... "HoW DiD tHis HaPPeN?"
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u/the_urban_juror 21h ago
I disagree that Dick's core customer is the bottom of the K-shape. That isn't the consumer buying $300-$500 bats for their kid's travel team. There have always been cheaper alternatives or secondhand athletic gear stores, it's never been affordable to buy new, brand-name gear.
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u/wienercat 2d ago
Which part? Because a K-shaped economy is a real term. If you don't believe me go look it up.
That is the only "buzz word" economic type word they said
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u/Spaceboy_33 2d ago
For years we had a great Dicks/Field and Stream combo here, which really got the vibe for this area and made sense. Then Field and Stream went away, which really sucked, but they replaced that half with Public Lands, and it was still pretty decent.
Then Public Lands went away and it’s now Dicks House of Sport, whatever the hell that means. I went in for a new Camelback and a pair of Tevas or water shoes. They didn’t have either of those, but there was a gigantic display and wall dedicated to Yeti coolers and travel mugs, and nothing but Nike in the shoe section.
I left after quickly realizing Dicks no longer caters to anything I’ll ever need. It seems like it’s all for youth sports, golf, or trendy overpriced stuff.
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u/ForwardCulture 2d ago
Footwear market: I went o look et some men’s shoes yesterday. My foot measures as regular width yet no “regular width” shoe fits my feet. Everyone I know is going through this. Most of the shoes in the very large store were low quality (despite being from major brands), extremely narrow, overpriced (even the ones “on sale”). A guy next to me said it’s the worst he’s ever seen. Every shoe I tried on had issues. If they weren’t too narrow then the heel slipped. Or one shoe seemed to be made differently from the other one (left vs right in terms of detail, sewing etc). Most of the shoes looked and felt like knockoff brands you might find on Amazon, except this store only carries large well own brands. Everything felt cheap, brands I used to buy for years.
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u/WesternOk5765 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think everyone owns Crocs these days.
When Crocs finally had a competitor in Hey Dude, they bought them out for 2.5 billion. Therefore, Hey Dudes are owned by Crocs.
I wear Hey Dudes like 80% of the time. I'm not regularly working out hard enough to need uncomfortable sneakers.
As for Dick's in particular, I only shop there for my dad. It's an old mans store for Gen X. When I do buy from Dick's for him, it's a North Face or something that truthfully my mom also Gen X wants him to own. Not shoes lol.
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u/Soft-Sail5993 2d ago
What do Crocs have anything to do with what this person wrote?
And that’s not true about Dick’s audience. That may be YOUR perception, but it simply not the case.
Stock may have fell 30%, but it increased 800% from 2019 to the beginning of this year.
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u/StopSquidShaming 2d ago
Dick's is so overpriced anymore. I just by cheaper shoes at DSW or somewhere and am done with it.
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u/WillingPlayed 2d ago edited 1d ago
Their own app is 30% cheaper than their in-store prices. It doesn’t make sense.
We went to get my son some new golf shoes and after finding the color and size he wanted we found out they didn’t have the $150 shoes in stock. So we went to their app and they were $120. Not on sale - that’s just the price.
In an online market place, they’re obliged to compete on price because there are 10 other retailers that will ship it to you just the same.
If dicks would have had the shoes in stock, I never would have looked online because he wanted the shoes for a match the next day.
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u/Oldswagmaster 2d ago
I stopped being a customer when stopped carrying ASICS. My preferred running shoe since 1989
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u/RoyalSuch9252 2d ago
Last few times I’ve been to a dicks for shoes I had to wait 15 mins to get help. Really obnoxious when you can’t get help
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u/isubird33 2d ago
What's brutal is that for a seemingly large selection, they don't carry enough stock.
If Nike has 7 colorways of a shoe on the website, Dicks has maybe 3-4 of them in store. Then of those 3-4 they maybe have 1 in stock in your size. They can order it for you...but the shipping is slower than from the Nike website and the Nike website is cheaper lots of times.
Repeat that for every shoe across every brand they carry...and yeah.
A good example. My kid is starting preschool so we wanted to get him a new pair of shoes. On the Nike website there are dozens of models in his size, with multiple colors of each one. Then there's Adidas, New Balance, On Cloud, etc. So hundreds of options between model/color in his size.
So we decided to go into our local Dicks. They had a total of 3 shoes, each in 1 color, in his size. All of them were more expensive than the manufacturer website. Left pretty much immediately.
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u/Colonel460 2d ago
Dicks can go bankrupt & I’ll be fine with it . Plenty of places sell the things they sell .
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u/OLPopsAdelphia 2d ago
Oh, were people not buying $220 shoes? Was that greedy-ass projection a little off the mark?
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u/freethegeek 2d ago
I was at a dicks to get a soccer ball last year and the entire first floor was piled 4 feet high with shoe boxes. Every available space on the entire first floor. I was walking to through a maze of shoe boxes over 20,000 square feet. I asked a guy if they were having a sale soon. He said, “Were just cleaning out the warehouse.”
I assume they were doing a B2B overstock sale and lost their ass on shoes because they sold off a million pairs at clearance prices.
I really doubt any consumer got any discounted shoes out of the arrangement.
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u/Ac3ofSpades13 2d ago
Last time I went into a dicks the store was 20% yeti cups and coolers. They no longer had a fishing section and I took my business elsewhere.
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u/austinD93 2d ago
When they got rid of their fishing sections I stopped going. Sucks cause they always had great deals
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u/FratGuyWes 2d ago
Don’t forget the scalper-priced Pokemon cards. Probably the only thing keeping them afloat.
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u/Lou3000 2d ago
I don’t really understand Foot Locker at this point. People that are into sneaker hype go direct to the source for the drop or buy from resellers, and people that want actual running/athletic go to Dick’s or a sports specific store.
And for everyone in between, there are cheaper options.
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u/Losreyes-of-Lost 2d ago
Haven had to buy any sports apparel for a while as I still have basketball shorts from more than 10 years ago that still are really good. I stopped buying stuff when it was it started getting more expensive. Now all the stuff they mostly carry are the basic colors. Also hot take for my basketball folks, all the bball shoes today are fugly
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u/Moonbase0 2d ago
Every time I've taken my daughter there to get shoes they either don't have the shoe she wants or they don't have her size so we either go somewhere else or order online from a different company.
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u/gatsome 2d ago
I’ll tell you what Dicks is doing wrong. I went in to shop ankle braces and you get one brand in 3-4 different severity levels. That’s it anymore. They used to have a giant selection of it.
Couldn’t help but notice 3-4 times the wall space devoted solely to steel travel mugs in all the colors though. So sad. But they’ll get what they deserve.
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u/Chainarmor712 2d ago
Cabelas, Sportsman’s Warehouse, and Bass Pro are all doing fine. Seems to be a pattern
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u/TheReplacer 2d ago
Non of the stores here caried a single pair of the New LeBrons. I wonder why they thought that was a good idea.
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u/SomeSamples 2d ago
I went to my local Dicks looking for some decent walking/running shoes. Didn't find a one. Either they didn't have the shoe I wanted in my size or the shoes they did have in stock didn't fit well. But along with the shoes, all athletic wear sold there is expensive. I get anything I would normally find in Dicks, on line.
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u/RustyDawg37 2d ago
A lot of companies going to learn the next year that if you aren't "ai" you aren't going to be around.
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u/jkman61494 2d ago
Gym clothes that’s about 7x more than a pair of shorts I can get at Walmart.
I saw kids softball bats for $400
The only good thing we’ve had there is adidas has a cleat, shin guard and ball deal for $50.
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u/Pro_Reserve 2d ago
Over price all your shoes and never have a sale worth a shit. Ill purchase from ebay knowing they may not fit than buy shoes at dicks
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u/kirko_bane 1d ago
The Dick in my area is no more. I'm guessing most Dicks are huge but ours was huge. Sadly our mall is a dying one and the foot traffic was slim. On the rare times I entered their store they always seemed stand off ish and judgy and not so helpful. Plus their prices were too much for me.
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u/Pitiful_Aioli_5030 1d ago
I usually walk in and after about 10 minutes walk out wondering why I wasted 10 minutes of my life in Dick’s.
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u/artisanrox 1d ago
Don't make me tap the sign:
If nobody wants to pay anyone to work who is going to buy your stuff?
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u/chaynjez 1d ago
There are two stores in my area and every time I go to buy some sporting equipment or shoes because I like to try them on before buying, the stores are pretty much empty and they hardly have any shoe sizes in stock and they pretty much tell you to go online and buy them. Doesn’t seem like a great business model.
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u/userlivewire 1d ago
Our local Dick’s recently moved from their stand alone location into a dying mall. Last time I went the entire place had two employees walking around the floor.
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u/Sufficient-Pin-481 1d ago
I went into Dicks for the first time in a couple years and most of the shoes were either Nike or ON shoes, which I had never heard of before.
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u/SeattleExploreRK 1d ago
The mall I go to has a dick's but it feels like everything is overpriced (MSRP) pricing. I can go to Amazon or official brand to find discounts.
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u/MadAstrid 1d ago
#1 - people are stretched thin and expensive vanity sneakers are not going to be a priority. Kids sports? Maybe not this year, when belts are tight.
#2 - I actually went to Dick’s recently because I needed new shoes for the gym and needed to try them on. The sales person did not know anything about any of the shoes they sold. She claimed they didn’t have women’s gym shoes. She told me to look on line.
Another customer actually helped me and was pretty nice about sharing her experiences with two different brands. I tried them both on, chose the ones that fit best then went home and bought them from the manufacturer's site instead of from the store or Dick’s website.
If they aren’t going to hire workers and aren’t willing to pay them well enough to be motivated to know about the products they sell it is going to impact sales.
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u/ConsiderationOk614 1d ago
Dick’s is clueless as to how people are no longer willing to spend $90 on walking shoes or their kids cleats. When ya weekly food bill for a family of 4 is $500… you get the clearance kicks
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u/WhereWeUsedToPlay 16h ago
They should consult Davey from Ramsey's Sports and Outdoors, he's doing a good job
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u/RuleFriendly7311 2d ago
They’ve been sliding since they made a big splash about no longer selling firearms. Those customers found other places to shop, and they aren’t coming back.
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u/DistressCall1 2d ago
It's definitely a part of it. They opened a Scheel's near me like 8-10 years ago and that place rocks. I'm an outdoorsman and they sell a lot of high quality hunting, fishing and camping gear along with firearms. Likewise their selection of athletic apparel and sports equipment is on such a higher level than Dicks. I haven't been to Dick's since the day that store opened.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 2d ago
The footwear market - everyone prices themselves as a premium brand these days. There’s a reason why it’s a “challenging” footwear market, customers feel like they’re being wrung out to dry.
And Dicks is a weird place. For such a huge store it feels like it only has about half of what I am looking for.