Dick’s Sporting Goods quick rehab of is in full swing as the company continues to refresh merchandise and reorganize the segment’s store count.
According to the Pittsburgh-based company’s executive chairman Ed Stack, Foot Locker expanded its “Fast Break” retail concept by approximately 90 stores in the first quarter of fiscal 2026. “Our Fast Break stores are performing exceptionally well, reinforcing our conviction in this capital-light remodel initiative,” Stack told analysts on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday.
And by the all-important back-to-school selling season, Stack said that he expects the company to have 250 Fast Break stores in operation across Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker and Champs banners globally with further expansion ahead of the holiday season.
“Our Fast Break initiative is built on retail fundamentals, a more focused shoe well improved storytelling and the reintroduction of apparel with curated and complementary offerings,” the executive explained. “These updates are fast to implement, typically completed in a few days and require limited capital. At its core, it’s retail 101. And when you execute it with discipline, it works.”
The upcoming back-to-school season will also mark the first time the new team “had full control” over the buys, which should help tell a new story to Foot Locker consumers. Stack has previously said, and reiterated on Wednesday’s call, that he felt like the Foot Locker footwear wall was a “run-on sentence.”
“[The Foot Locker footwear wall] was just filled with a bunch of shoes, and it was nothing important,” Stack maintained. “What we did is we took all those shoes off the wall, we reduced roughly 30 percent of the SKU choices and focus on key styles, key colors and key stories that when the consumer came in, they knew what was important.”
Stack added that behind the scenes, the company is also working to strengthen the fundamentals of the Foot Locker business with improvements in supply chain, moving product faster and getting product into the right stores.
“We’re playing greater discipline around pricing and using real-time data to drive better decisions and sharper execution,” Stack said. “Finally, our brand partners remain fully engaged. They want a strong growing Foot Locker, and they are leaning in with us as their largest global partner.”
He added that consumers can expect to see a better assortment of what’s going on from a basketball standpoint as well as performance run and the retro-run category.
In terms of store count, Dicks’ leadership isn’t shying away from doing what’s necessary to right the ship. The company disclosed that in the first quarter of 2026, it closed 18 Foot Locker stores in North America as well as seven Champs stores, seven Kids Foot Locker locations and 43 WSS stores.
Overall, the company has shuttered 88 stores within the Foot Locker Business segment in the first quarter. Of those 88 stores, 62 were global Foot Locker stores identified as part of Dicks’ strategic review of unproductive assets.
What’s more, the Foot Locker Business relocated or remodeled 17 stores during Q1 consisting of four Foot Locker, four Kids Foot Locker and four WSS store locations in North America and five international store locations.
“We’re right on schedule with what we plan to do with Foot Locker,” Stack added on the call. “We’ve cleaned out the garage from an inventory standpoint. We’ve repaired vendor relationships with key brands that were somewhat disenchanted with Foot Locker. We’ve rebuilt the management teams, and we’ve remerchandised the stores with what we’re doing with Fast Break.”
