A Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Pleasant Hill, California, United States, on Monday, November 24, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Dick’s Sporting Goods plans to close a large number of Foot Locker stores now that its acquisition of the sneaker company is complete, the company said Tuesday when announcing its third-quarter financial results.
It’s unclear how many stores Dick plans to close, but the closures are part of a broader restructuring it’s implementing so Foot Locker doesn’t take a toll on its profits in fiscal 2026, Dick’s executive chairman Ed Stack told CNBC’s Courtney Reagan.
“We have to clean out the garage,” Stack said. “We’ve done some pretty aggressive reductions to clean out old merchandise. We’re altering assets in some stores. We’ll be closing some stores… everything we’re doing is there to protect 2026 and we’re only doing this once.”
The company declined to say how many stores would be affected and whether the restructuring would include layoffs.
As a result, Foot Locker’s comparable sales are expected to decline between 10 and 15 percent in the current quarter, with margins expected to fall between 10 and 15 percentage points.
The entrance to a Footlocker retail store in the Barton Creek Square shopping center on September 8, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Beyond the Foot Locker business, Dick’s stores saw comparable sales increase 5.7% during the quarter, well above the 3.6% expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount.
For its eponymous brand, the company now expects comparable sales growth of between 3.5% and 4%, up from its previous range of 2% to 3.5%. That’s higher than expectations for 3.6% growth, according to StreetAccount.
Dick’s also now expects full-year earnings per share to be between $14.25 and $14.55, up from a previous forecast of $13.90 to $14.50 and in line with expectations of $14.44 per share, according to LSEG.
Here’s how the big-box sporting goods store performed compared to what Wall Street expected, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: $2.78 adjusted vs. $2.71 expected
- Income: $4.17 billion versus $3.59 billion expected
The company’s reported net income for the three months ended Nov. 1 was $75.2 million, or 86 cents per share, compared with $227.8 million, or $2.75 per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, including the impact of the Foot Locker acquisition, Dick’s posted earnings per share of $2.78.
Dick’s has been a standout player in the retail industry and now has the challenge of fixing Foot Locker’s business so it doesn’t weigh on its typically impeccable bottom line.
Dick’s $2.4 billion acquisition of Foot Locker gave it a significant competitive advantage in the wholesale sneaker market, particularly for Nike products and access to both an international and urban consumer.
This also boosts business growth. Thanks to Foot Locker’s revenue of nearly $931 million in the quarter, Dick’s sales increased 36% to $4.17 billion from $3.06 billion a year earlier.
However, this also carries certain risks. Foot Locker has about 2,400 stores worldwide and has performed poorly for years. Its consumer tends to have lower incomes than Dick’s and has not fared as well in a slowing economy.
Under Mary Dillon’s leadership, Foot Locker has worked to refresh its stores and change the way it markets sneakers. Since its acquisition, the company has begun testing changes in 11 stores across North America to see if the fixes improve sales, including reducing products by more than 20 percent, bringing back clothing and modifying Foot Locker’s “shoe wall.”
“If you ever walked into a Foot Locker store and looked at the wall of shoes…it was nothing but a phrase,” Stack said. “It was just a whole bunch of shoes thrown at the wall, and we took it all down, re-merchandised it, focusing on the shoes that we really wanted to sell. … It’s early days, but we’re pretty excited about what we’ve done.”
— CNBC’s Courtney Reagan contributed to this report.