Heading into its 50th anniversary, Fleet Feet has more to celebrate than its longevity.
The number of locations for its namesake running stores and Marathon Sports, which it acquired in 2022, pushed past the 300 mark in 2025. Fleet Feet closed the year with 284 doors for its franchised and corporate-owned stores, while Marathon Sports ended at 28 for an increase of 9 and 4 locations, respectively.
Chief executive officer Joey Pointer said the 2026 plan is to get Fleet Feet past 300 and close in on 50 for its Cambridge, Mass.-born subsidiary.
“I’m really proud of how our team adapted to the challenges, whether they’re tariffs or other economic uncertainties, while trying to bring new and exciting ideas to life like our Brooks Cross XC National Championship,” Pointer told Footwear News on a call in late-December.
Total sales for Fleet Feet rose by “low single digits” last year, with those at the digital level up “mid single digits.” Pointer sees the digital growth as especially important because that’s where the search often starts for a consumer, and the retailer is continuing to double down on educating its outfitters to advise those that come into its stores.
“I always say that it’s really intimidating to be an outfitter because you have a massive shoe wall that you have to understand, but you have everything else in the store [to know], from which gels are caffeinated to the difference between the socks and insoles,” the CEO said.
Leading the way on the shoe wall are Hoka and Brooks, the former of which was Fleet Feet’s top-seller of 2024. At the beginning 2025, Pointer predicted a fierce battle between the two brands for the No. 1 spot, and with just eight days left in the year, it was still too close to name a winner.
Asics and Altra are also doing well for Fleet Feet, and Nike is gaining traction amid a resurgence for its running division. The caveat is that Fleet Feet still sells more sandals than it does total Nike shoes as the brand works its way back into specialty stores after turning away from retailers at the beginning of the decade. Pointer confidently predicts Nike will be in half of Fleet Feet’s locations by the end of 2026. In comparison, the brand’s presence was just a fraction of that figure two years ago.
“It’s good to see them back in stores, but the product is just good,” Pointer said. “They’ve always excelled at the pinnacle product, but brands like Hoka and Brooks, even New Balance, were taking them every single day because they had better cushioning, better support, and a better everyday running experience. Nike has corrected that.”
And the one thing Pointer’s son asked for Christmas: the Nike Vomero Premium.
Fleet Feet’s relationship with On is also much better than it was before, and it will soon announce “something special” involving the Swiss brand, the Diamond League track series and the sports media platform FloTrack.
Even more crucial, though, is that Fleet Feet is once again getting better access to On product — a pain point that Pointer called out last year.
“There’s another brand I won’t name right now that is moving their distribution center, and when you can’t get product, it just kills the momentum of a brand.”
Last year also saw Fleet Feet deepen its relationship with Adidas through a new partnership announced in November, and the retailer partnered with Brooks to launch a new national cross country championship to fill the void after Foot Locker ended its own that ran for 45 years.
Pointer is especially proud of the growth of Fleet Feet’s Santa fundraising runs, which began at its Rochester stores and has now been replicated at hundreds of other locations. Thousands of dollars were individually raised for beneficiaries as disparate as an urban ministry in Fayetteville, N.C., and the American Cancer Society in Fort Wayne, Ind.
“Every store is going to do it different, but it’s all under one brand and one umbrella about ‘How do you leave this in a better place?’ Fifty years in and we’re still at that intersection of community-based retailing.”
For 2026, Fleet Feet will continue to try to solve the problem the entire field is facing: sales are exploding for the brands that make running product, but business is largely flat for specialty retailers. Leaning into community is part of what Pointer sees as the solution. Another is increasing brand awareness for the consumers wearing running shoes without engaging with the sport, a phenomenon that’s been a major driver for brand growth.
To better speak with those who are logging miles, Fleet Feet will soon announce the hire for its new position of chief running officer. Among the duties will be the relaunching of Fleet Feet’s successful training programs.
Engagement with both types of consumers will be a focus in new locations in cities that include Florida; the Greater Chicago Area; San Antonio; Biloxi, Miss., and El Segundo, Calif. Fleet Feet also wants to explore what the store of the future looks like following its hire of Jason Williams as vice president of store development and real estate last year.
Pointer was hesitant to get into the specifics of that future prematurely, but he did reveal one of the pilots will be a small footprint urban store with 1,000 square feet rather than the more traditional square footage of 2,500. Trail will be also be an area of focus for Marathon Sports, which will open up a category-specific store near Whiteface Mountain in Massachusetts.
Pointer believes Fleet Feet’s best days are still ahead. “You look at participation rates, and races continue to skyrocket. I think consumers still want that deeper connection and community [and I think that’s] squarely where we [sort of] fit in with that.”
