DICK'S Sporting Goods Q3 2025 Earnings Report

DICK'S Sporting Goods EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.75
• Consensus EPS: $2.68
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.07
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.85

DICK'S Sporting Goods Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.06 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.03 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$28.61 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +0.50%

DICK'S Sporting Goods Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2025
• Date: 11/26/2024
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. operates as a leading specialty retailer of sporting goods, apparel, footwear and fitness equipment in the United States. The company operates a network of brick-and-mortar stores complemented by an e-commerce platform, offering a seamless omni-channel shopping experience to recreational athletes and sports enthusiasts. DICK’S stores feature a broad assortment of products for team sports, outdoor recreation, hunting, fishing, fitness and lifestyle apparel, sourced from major national brands as well as proprietary private labels.

The company’s product portfolio includes athletic footwear and apparel, golf clubs, snow sports equipment, camping gear, exercise machines and team uniforms, alongside services such as equipment repair and outfitting. In addition to its flagship DICK’S Sporting Goods locations, the company owns specialty concepts including Golf Galaxy and Field & Stream, catering to niche markets in golf and outdoor sporting pursuits. Its loyalty program and personalized customer services support retention and drive repeat engagement across digital and physical channels.

Founded in 1948 by Richard “Dick” Stack as a small bait-and-tackle shop in Binghamton, New York, the retailer expanded over decades through strategic store openings, targeted acquisitions and investments in supply chain and technology. DICK’S Sporting Goods went public in 2002 and has since grown to operate more than 850 stores in nearly 50 states, with headquarters in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The company’s executive leadership team is headed by President and Chief Executive Officer Lauren R. Hobart, who assumed the role in 2021, while Richard W. “Ed” Stack serves as Executive Chairman.

Positioned as a market leader in the sporting goods sector, DICK’S emphasizes geographic reach, category depth and customer service to maintain competitive differentiation. The company continues to invest in digital initiatives, store innovation and exclusive partnerships, aiming to capture evolving consumer trends in health, wellness and active lifestyle pursuits across the United States.

DICK'S Sporting Goods Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Dick’s delivered Q3 comps up 4.2%, gross margin expanded 67 bps to 35.77%, EPS was $2.75, and the company raised its full-year comp sales outlook to 3.6–4.2% and EPS guidance to $13.65–13.95.
• The House of Sport concept now has 19 locations open (five added this month) with plans for ~15 more in 2025 and a target of 75–100 by 2027, while the 50,000 sq ft Field House format reached 26 stores with ~20 openings planned for 2025.
• GameChanger continues rapid growth, with over 5.5 million unique users in Q3 (up 21%) and ~2 million daily active users, driving toward $100 million in annual SaaS revenue within a multi-billion-dollar youth sports tech market.
• Inventory increased 13% year-over-year as Dick’s tactically stocked key brands and categories ahead of Q4, while clearance levels remain down year-over-year, positioning for holiday and early 2025 sales.
• SG&A expenses deleveraged by 162 bps in Q3 (up 7.2%) due to strategic investments in marketing, technology and talent, and further SG&A deleverage is expected as the company continues funding long-term initiatives.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Christa, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Dick's Sporting Goods Incorporated Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. And after the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

And I would now like to turn the conference over to Nate Gilch, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Nate, you may begin.

[Nate Gilch, Senior Director, IR at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our Q3 2024 results. On today's call will be Lauren Hobart, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Navdeep Gupta, our Chief Financial Officer. A playback of today's call will be archived in our Investor Relations website located at investors. Dicks.com for approximately 12 months. As a reminder, we will be making forward looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements.

[Nate Gilch, Senior Director, IR at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements in our earnings release and risk factor discussions in our filings with the SEC, including our last Annual Report on Form 10 ks as well as cautionary statements made during this call. We assume no obligation to update any of these forward looking statements or information. Please refer to our Investor Relations website to find the reconciliation of our non GAAP financial measures referenced in today's call. And finally, for your future scheduling purposes, we are tentatively planning to publish our Q4 2024 earnings results on March 11, 2025. With that, I will now turn the call over to Lauren.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you, Nate, and good morning, everyone. As we announced earlier this morning, we delivered another strong quarter. We are very proud of our Q3 results and our performance year to date. These results show how well our long term strategies are working and the great execution from our team. Our Q3 comps increased 4.2% driven by our 4 strategic pillars of omni channel athlete experience, differentiated product assortment, deep engagement with the DICK'S brand and our knowledgeable and passionate teammates who are integral to our success.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We had an excellent back to school season and continue to gain market share. Our Q3 gross margin expanded 67 basis points from last year's non GAAP results, driven by higher merchandise margin and we delivered EPS of $2.75 As a result of our strong performance in the quarter and the continued confidence we have in our business, we are again raising our full year outlook. We now expect comp sales growth for the full year to be in the range of 3.6% to 4.2% and EPS to be in the range of $13.65 to $13.95 At the heart of our long term strategies is the omni channel athlete experience. We're continuing to invest across our digital and store experiences with a focus on elevating training, service and product knowledge to drive enhanced engagement with our athletes. We feel great about the strong performance of House of Sport.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We are redefining sports retail and creating strong engagement with our athletes, brand partners and communities. We continue to see sports having a strong influence on culture and culture on sport and our house of sport concept is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of all athletes across both performance and lifestyle. In Q3, we opened 3 house of sport locations followed by 2 more earlier this month, bringing us to 19 now open ahead of the holiday season. In 2025, we expect to open approximately 15 House of Sport locations and we remain on track to have 75 to 100 locations open by 2027. Inspired by House of Sport, we continue to revolutionize our 50,000 square foot fixed stores with the next generation format, which we refer to internally as our field house concept.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

These stores continue to do very well in both sales and profitability. In Q3, we opened 5 Field House locations followed by another 4 earlier this month, bringing us to 26 now open. In 2025, we expect to open approximately 20 Field House locations. The Texas market is an exciting growth opportunity for us and one of the areas where we are investing in new house support locations in marketing and in our infrastructure to enhance the omni channel experience for our athletes and capture this potential. This quarter, we broke ground on the new distribution center we've been planning in Fort Worth, Texas, which is expected to open in early 2026.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Our digital capabilities are central to our omni channel athlete experience. We continue to improve the shopping experience for our athletes, including on dicks.com and our DICK'S mobile app. Our elevated and diverse assortment uniquely positions us as the destination for new products. And this past quarter, we expanded our product launch reservations in our Dix app beyond footwear and golf to include product drops across other key categories. We're also giving our teammates new and improved technology tools to help them find the right products quicker, including expanding our use of RFID technology.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

As we discussed, Game changer continues to be a key part of our digital strategy and it's strengthening our leadership in the multi $1,000,000,000 youth sports tech ecosystem. Over 5,500,000 unique users were active on Game changer in the 3rd quarter, a 21% increase from last year. And we had approximately 2,000,000 average daily active users in the Game changer app during the quarter. Providing differentiated on trend products helps make Dick the go to destination for sport in the U. S.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Our health of sport and field health concepts have opened doors to new brand partnerships and strengthened existing relationships as they enable us to showcase our brand partners and vertical brands in a way no one else can. Our priority categories continue to perform very well, led by important national brands and our flagship vertical brands. And we've deliberately taken steps to be fully stocked across key products and categories for holiday shopping. Looking ahead, we are optimistic about the product pipeline into next year. In closing, we're very pleased with our strong Q3 results and are highly confident in our long term strategies to drive sustained sales and profit growth.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We believe our differentiated product, quality service and powerful omni channel experience will resonate well with our athletes this holiday season, along with this year's really fun holiday campaign featuring NFL legend J. J. Watt and his family, which is driving so much buzz. I'd like to thank all of our teammates for their hard work and commitment to Zix Sporting Goods and for their focus on delivering great experiences for our athletes this holiday season. With that, I'll turn the call over to Navdeep to share our financial results in more detail.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with some highlights of our strong year to date performance. Through the Q3, consolidated net sales increased 4.8% to $9,550,000,000 Adjusting for the calendar shift, our comps increased 4.7 percent driven by a 3.7% increase in average ticket and a 1% increase in transactions. EBT was $1,120,000,000 11.75 percent of net sales. This is up from non GAAP EBT of $975,300,000 or 10.71 percent of net sales in the same 39 week period last year.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

In total, we delivered earnings per diluted share of $10.43 This compares to non GAAP earnings per diluted share of $9.08 last year, an increase of 15% for the 39 week period. Now moving to our Q3 results. Adjusting for the calendar shift, which we believe provides the clearest view of the business, our Q3 comps increased 4.2% as we continue to gain market share. Our strong comps were driven by a 4.8% increase in average ticket and partially offset by a modest 0.6% decline in transaction. Our back to school categories did very well with strength across footwear, athletic apparel and team sports.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Consolidated net sales increased 0.5% to $3,060,000,000 As we previewed during the last quarter's call, this included the unfavorable impact of the calendar shift from the 53rd week last year. As expected, this shifted a key back to school week out of Q3 and into Q2, unfavorably impacting the Q3 sales by approximately $105,000,000 $0.35 in earnings per diluted share. Gross profit for the Q3 remains strong at $1,090,000,000 or 35.77 percent of net sales and increased 67 basis points from last year's non GAAP results. This increase was driven by higher merchandise margin of 84 basis points due to favorable sales mix and the quality of our assortment. This was partially offset by expected deleverage on occupancy costs driven by unfavorable impact to our total sales from the calendar shift.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

On a non GAAP basis, SG and A expenses increased 7.2 percent to $787,100,000 and deleveraged 162 basis points compared to last year's non GAAP results. This year over year deleverage was expected with approximately 65 basis points of this increase due to unfavorable impact to our reported total sales from the calendar shift. The remaining increase was driven by strategic investments primarily across marketing, technology and talent based on the strength of our business as well as higher incentive compensation. Preopening expenses was $16,800,000 a decrease of $3,600,000 compared to the prior year and favorable versus our expectations due to difference in timing of new store openings. EBT was $297,100,000 or 9.7 percent of net sales.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

This compares to a non GAAP EBT of $321,100,000 or 10.6 percent of net sales in Q3 of 2023. This included an unfavorable impact from the calendar shift of approximately 95 basis points. In total, we delivered earnings per diluted share of $2.75 This compares to a non GAAP earnings per diluted share of $2.85 last year. As I mentioned earlier, the current year included an unfavorable impact from the calendar shift of $0.35 in earnings per diluted share. Now looking to our balance sheet, we ended Q3 with approximately $1,500,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents and no borrowings on our $1,600,000,000 unsecured credit facility.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Our quarter end inventory levels increased 13% compared to Q3 of last year. As we have talked about previously, to maximize the benefit of our differentiated assortment, we have made a conscious decision to lean into key items and categories, which we expect to drive our growth in Q4 as well as into early 2025. Our investment is in some of our strongest product offerings and we believe our inventory is clean and well positioned as we enter the Q4. In fact, our clearance inventory is down meaningfully year over year. Turning to our Q3 capital allocation.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Net capital expenditures were approximately $185,000,000 and we paid $90,000,000 in quarterly dividends. We also repurchased approximately 35,000 shares of our stock for $6,700,000 at an average price of $194.22 Thus far this year, we have repurchased a total of $170,300,000 of our stock. For the full year, we continue to expect share repurchases of approximately $300,000,000 Now moving to our outlook for 2024. As Lawrence said, we are again raising our full year outlook. This reflects our strong Q3 performance and our confidence in our strategic initiatives and operational strength balanced against the dynamic macroeconomic environment and shorter traditional holiday shopping season.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We now expect consolidated net sales in the range of $13,200,000,000 to $13,300,000,000 compared to our prior expectation of $13,100,000,000 to $13,200,000,000 We now expect full year comp sales growth in the range of 3.6% to 4.2% compared to our prior expectation of 2.5% to 3.5% growth. Driven by the quality of assortment, we continue to expect gross margin to expand year over year and now anticipate it will slightly exceed our prior expectations. Based on the strength of our business, we are making strategic investments to better position ourselves for 2025 and over the long term and continue to expect SG and A to deleverage year over year. We continue to expect EBT margins to be at 11.2 percent of sales at the midpoint. In total, we now anticipate earnings per diluted share to be in the range of $13.65 to $13.95 compared to our prior expectation of $13.55 to $13.90 Our earnings guidance is based on approximately 83,000,000 average diluted shares outstanding and an effective tax rate of 23%.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We continue to expect net capital expenditures of approximately $800,000,000 for the year. Lastly, keep in mind, due to the impact of the shifted calendar, our reported total sales and EPS benefited by approximately $35,000,000 or approximately $0.10 per diluted share through the 1st 3 quarters of the year. We expect a modestly unfavorable impact in the Q4 of approximately $30,000,000 or $0.10 per diluted share. On a full year basis, this shift will not impact our results. Furthermore, recall that last year's 53rd week added $170,000,000 or $0.19 per diluted share in Q4 2023.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

In total, Q4 compares versus last year will be unfavorably impacted by approximately $200,000,000 in sales and approximately $0.29 in earnings per diluted share. This all has been contemplated within our updated guidance. In closing, we are very pleased with our Q3 performance and the success of our long term strategy. We remain very enthusiastic about the future of our business. This concludes our prepared remarks.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you for your interest in DICK'S Sporting Goods. Operator, you may now open the line for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your first question comes from the line of Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

Good morning. And let me just say congratulations. My first question is actually going to be on your ability to succeed in the current environment. So what we've seen so far during retail seat earning season is most of the winners are those who are kind of more value oriented and they're giving back price. The composition of your comp is kind of the opposite.

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

It's stronger full price selling, AUR probably up on that ATV. So Lauren, can you talk about why Dick's is positioned, why you're taking so much market share with non promotional sales in an era of very promotional holiday? And the kind of shift of the power of your multi brand retail strategy, given that you're one of the biggest national sporting goods retailer? Thank you.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thanks, Adrienne. Yeah, we are really pleased with the comp that we just put up and to your point there has we have had 3 quarters in a row now of over a 4% comp. And I think it really is a testament to the fact that our long term strategies are working. And I would point to the access that we've had continued to gain to differentiated product. Our merchant team has done an absolutely amazing job and to your point.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Multi brand retail strategy between our national partners and our vertical brands. And at the same time, our team throughout the entire organization is executing at such an incredibly high level. So we're really able to serve athletes with the products that they need and do it in a way that is increasingly engaging and a really fun experience. It's important, I think, to look at our athlete and how athletes are doing. They have been for some time prioritizing healthy and active lifestyle.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

They're prioritizing team sports. We saw a tremendous, gain in the back to school categories this past quarter. So footwear, apparel, team sports, but also prioritizing just outdoor living, golf, really all of the athletic categories and just being outside. We saw 1,500,000 more athletes enter our ecosystem over the past quarter, and we saw growth across all income demographics. So again, to your point, we are sort of seeing different trends perhaps in the industry would be saying.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

I would point to the fact that, in the industry would be saying. I would point to the fact that we're in such an exciting time in sport and an exciting time in the industry. The country is really having what we're calling a smart moment. And if you think about it between women's basketball, which is just on fire, and the expanded NCAA playoffs for football this year, and then the fact that the World Cup is going to be mostly in the U. S.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

In 'twenty six and the Olympics in L. A. In 'twenty eight, we really expect that sport's going to continue to have an outsized influence on culture and culture on sport. And I really think DICK'S is in such a great lane to just ride those trends in that we are rooted in sport. We have all the performance merchandising gear you could ever want, but we increasingly also have product that is the lifestyle of sport.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And so that's why we have such confidence in our athlete and our growth going forward.

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

Fantastic. And my follow-up, Navdeep, I guess officially the tariff man has come. So we had an update yesterday evening, 25% Canada, Mexico and obviously the 10% in China. Historically, you've already told us that you don't have much exposure, but for the private label. So can you just update us?

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

I'm assuming that this doesn't change the answer that you've given us before, but just remind us now that we have some quasi official numbers, how are you thinking about that? Thank you.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes. Adrian, thanks for that question. First of all, thank you for your comments on the Q3 results as well. We couldn't be more excited about the results that we have delivered here in Q3. In terms of tariffs, I think so I would say that slightly more information is known.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We still don't know about the timing and the likely the categories that would be impacted. So still a lot to be learned more. But like you said, we have navigated the situation back in 2018, 2019 effectively as well. Vertical brands perspective, we have a very small or actually very, very negligible amount of exposure as because we have diversified our supply chain both from China as well as there's not much of an exposure even if you look into Mexico or Canada. So we feel we are well positioned for that.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And then like Lauren indicated, we have very strong partnership with our national brand vendors. So as more is learned, we'll continue to navigate that in close partnership with our national brand vendors as well. Overall, if you look back to how we navigated this in 2018, 2019, that will be kind of the playbook that will follow here again as more is learned.

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

Fantastic. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Black Friday.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Simeon Gutman, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Good morning, everyone. My first question is on inventory and then a follow-up on the P and L. You gave the color around the inventory spread and you mentioned similar factors in the prior quarter. So we know what to expect. My question is, are you tracking where you'd expect to be by the end of Q4?

[Simeon Gutman, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

And does any of the slower start to cold temperatures affect how you'll end the year versus where you expect to be in the early part of next year?

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thanks, Simeon. Yes, I'm glad you asked. I want to discuss the inventory, the investment that we've made in inventory. We have made a conscious decision over the course of several quarters now to invest in our highly differentiated assortment. And this quarter, the inventory that we ended the quarter with is complete with things like key items, key brands, things like fleece, things like footwear, the licensed opportunity that I just mentioned with the NCAA playoff expansion.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And so we don't peanut butter spread the inventory across the categories. We're very surgical and strategic about it. We have 2 exciting opportunities that some of this inventory is meant to address going into Q4. One of which is that around the holiday season leading into like the last days of Christmas or right before Christmas, we sometimes were broken on size and color for some of our key items, say Nike fleece and things like that. So we will be addressing that with the inventory.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And we also feel like we have an opportunity in our warmer weather climates to transition out of holiday and into our spring merchandise even earlier. So we've accelerated some of that. So many of these products will have life into 2025 and we should see the results in the back half of the quarter and into 2025. So we are very confident. And you saw that we just increased our guidance.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Our comp guidance implied in Q4 has increased as well. So we're very pleased.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And Simeon, let me just build on what Lauren said. The inventory is right in line with our expectation. And you called out a little bit on the colder weather impact. I would say the weather is still very early part of Q4. The vast majority of the holiday selling season is ahead of us.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

So we feel really good about the quality of the inventory. We also called out that the clearance levels continue to be really well managed. It's actually down significantly. So overall really excited about the composition of the inventory, how well that inventory is positioned in the key categories. And based on that confidence we raised our Q4 expectation and our full year comp expectations as well.

[Simeon Gutman, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Okay. Thanks for that. The follow-up is on the P and L. I don't think we've gotten into a discussion on margin versus EBITDA growth. I know we've talked about it individual years.

[Simeon Gutman, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

My question is whether it's Q4 or beyond thinking about SG and A dollar growth because there's a higher level of expenses now with House of Sport and other costs. Should we expect you to lever SG and A or should we meaning should margins go up or should margins gross margin offset what's happening in SG and A? How do we expect the movement of the P and L going forward?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah. Simeon, maybe I'll start with the full year guidance that we have issued and in another quarter we'll be providing a little bit of a further outlook for 2025. So let's start with the results that we have posted as well as the guidance that we have issued. So first of all, we couldn't be more excited about the 4.7% comp that we have posted year to date and the guidance that we have issued. And at the midpoint of our guidance, our comp will be approximately 4% which is on top of a 2.6% growth or comp growth last year.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And like you indicated, our expectation is that the merch margin at the midpoint will expand on a 40 basis points on a year over year basis as well. So said in effect that the way we are thinking about our focus in driving the business is to continue to drive the strong top line and strong bottom line improvement. There will be puts and takes between the margin and SG and A and as you are seeing it at this year play out, we are driving really strong top line momentum and driving strong gross margin expansion and we're leveraging that to make strategic investments in SG and A to position ourselves better even for 2025 and beyond. Lauren indicated one of the technologies that we have implemented RFID in our stores which is allowing our store team members to quickly find the product and and serve that athlete. As you can imagine in apparel and footwear, it's really important to be able to quickly locate the product and service that athlete.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And those are the examples of the investments that we are making which we believe will drive long term returns as we look to 'twenty five and beyond. So in a summary, what I would say is look to us to continue to drive strong top line and strong profitability improvement with little bit of an interplay between the margin and SG and A.

[Simeon Gutman, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Perfect. Thanks. Good quarter and good luck on the holidays.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

[Brian Nagel, MD & Senior Analyst - Consumer Growth & eCommerce at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

Hi, good morning. Congrats again. Another great quarter.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Brian Nagel, MD & Senior Analyst - Consumer Growth & eCommerce at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

So my first question, we talked in the prepared comments, you talked about the ongoing success of the new concepts, including House of Sport. So I guess the question is just maybe you can remind us the rollout plan as we through the balance of 24, but probably more important into 25? And then how are these how is this rollout now impacting comp store sales growth at Dick's? You're recognizing there's been some noise around sales growth with the calendar shift.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thanks, Brian. I'll start just with an update on the House of Support concept in general and Navdeep will answer some of your more detailed questions. But House of Support continues to be an incredibly impactful part of our long term strategy. We just opened 4 more in the past couple of weeks. We had the opportunity to go visit many of them and they just the impact they have in the community when they open is terrific.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

The experience is delighting athletes. We're seeing athletes drive longer distances. They're spending more time when they come. The community is just absolutely embracing a house of sport. Importantly, we're also seeing our vendor partners get very excited about the fact that they can bring their whole brand to life in a house of sport and in particular in the CoLab spaces where we can tell this incredible brand story.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Last thing I would just say is that landlords and mall operators are noticing that we, when we put a house of sport into a mall, we get incredible, there's incredible traffic increases to the mall, which is obviously a win win for everybody, but it's also allowing us to get access to even better long term real estate opportunities. So we are really excited. I'll turn it to Navdeep to answer some of your more specific questions.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah Brian, just to give some of the count information. So we finished last year with 12 houses for location and we expect to finish this year with approximately 20 houses for location. What we have indicated is we plan to open another 15 locations in 2025 with the long term expectations of 75 to 100 housesport locations by 2027. In terms of the comp definition, the vast majority of these house of support openings will be relocation or remodels of the existing locations and they will continue to remain in our comp as have been. And so that's the reason you're not seeing that much of a difference come through between the comp and the total sales growth.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We do selectively open new locations as well. For example, Prudential Center this year, a house of support location was a brand new location, but those will be far and few between. So vast majority of these these housesport locations will be within our comp composition as we look to the future as well.

[Brian Nagel, MD & Senior Analyst - Consumer Growth & eCommerce at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

Okay, that's very helpful. Appreciate all that. Then my follow-up question, I guess, Nir, just with regard to guidance, I know it's a follow-up, so maybe I can make it 2 parts anyway. So sorry about that. So look, you beat Street in Q3, you lifted guidance for the full year.

[Brian Nagel, MD & Senior Analyst - Consumer Growth & eCommerce at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

Are you the first part of that question, are you taking up guidance for from your internal projections for the Q4? And then with regard to and I know you mentioned and others and a lot of others have talked about the impact of this shortened holiday season. How are you thinking about that? I mean, I was in one of your stores, I guess, last week and I saw a lot of holiday signage already. So it seems like you're doing what you can to kind of pull forward.

[Brian Nagel, MD & Senior Analyst - Consumer Growth & eCommerce at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

But how are you thinking just about what how the impacts could play out here from this fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas?

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes. Thanks, Brian. So to your point, we beat our Q3 estimates and did lift our guidance and that is reflecting both the confidence that we have in the momentum in the business and all of the long term strategies that I mentioned. We're super excited about Holiday, by the way. I would just point out that our stores, to your point, are looking amazing.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Our online store looks amazing. Our marketing kicked off a few weeks ago with JJ Watt, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks. It's just driving an incredible buzz. And our team is extremely pumped. So we're excited about Q4.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We did want to be appropriately cautious given the two factors, one being just the uncertain macroeconomic environment and then also the fewer holiday days. There's 5 fewer. People are waking up and talking to it. I'm hearing even people in my life talk about how, oh, my gosh, Christmas is coming. They have to quickly accelerate the gift buying.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

But we've been prepared for this. Black Friday holiday has expanded into the early weeks of November for many years now and we've started our stores already, our online stores ready. So, we are excited about it, just being appropriately cautious. Aptivo, would you add?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah. Just to build, Brian, on what Lauren said. So as we indicated today, we have raised both our comp and the EPS expectations for full year. In Q3, we delivered really strong results. So we definitely look to that opportunity to translate that beat in terms of our full year expectations.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

In terms of Q4, what we have indicated is we have raised our top line expectations for Q4 driven by the fact that how strongly we feel our inventory position is, how well ready our stores and our website are for the holiday selling season. But we are as you can imagine, we are balancing that against the macroeconomic uncertainties as well as the short haul and talent that Lauren talked about. In terms of the full year EPS expectations, we have raised that as well. And within that, you have the composition of the margins being raised a little bit versus our prior expectations, offset by the SG and A investment opportunities that we see to continue to take advantage of the opportunities we see to position the business better for 2025. So overall, really excited about the results we posted as well as the confidence we have for Q4 and beyond.

[Brian Nagel, MD & Senior Analyst - Consumer Growth & eCommerce at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

Great. Well, I appreciate all the color. Congrats again. Best of luck here for the holiday.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thanks, Brian.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Kate McShane with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Kate McShane, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Because it's come up a couple of times with the commentary around differentiation and I know that's been a big driver of growth for you, How much would you say your product overlaps with retailers today? And how has that changed?

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Kate, thanks for the question. We have really been leaning into differentiation across the board. And if you look at our footwear, we have highly differentiated product. If you look at even some of the exclusives we have across our hardline businesses, there's exclusives even in team sports and things like that. So we have a highly differentiated product.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

It does allow us to be much more surgical when, where and how we participate in any sort of promotional activity. We're just less vulnerable to the entire market going up and down. And it continues to be a core strategy of us. We don't release the exact amount that our products overlap. But, Navdeep, would you?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah, Kate. And just to build on what Lauren said, the other portfolio that we have in our assortment and that we are really excited about is our vertical brands. So our vertical brands, especially when you think of the flagship vertical brand, CALIA, WES, DSG, those brands are resonating so well with our athletes and we continue to see that as an opportunity to not only differentiate our assortment, but our overall basket building opportunity that we provide to these athletes. So, yeah, no, our key driver of both the top line momentum as well as the margin gains that we have been driving is driven by the work that our merchandising team is doing in creating these curated assortment and having in-depth presentation of these products available in stores and online.

[Kate McShane, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

Okay. And then our follow-up question, thank you, was on the drivers of ticket during the quarter. It seems like ticket increased a little bit more than what we've seen. How much of that is just same SKU inflation versus mix of what you sold in Q3?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah, Kate, I would say it's pretty consistent with what we have been talking about the drivers of the ticket. It goes back to your prior question. It is driven by the differentiated product that we have access to and what Lauren called out in her remarks that you know this curated and differentiated product is not exposed to kind of the promotional pressures that may be out there. So we are able to get a better recovery on the margin as well and that also helps us drive a higher ticket. So it's again mix, that differentiated product and the pricing opportunity that we see.

[Kate McShane, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

Thank you.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Robbie Ohmes with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Robert Ohmes, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hey, congrats guys. Thanks for taking my question. Actually just two quicker questions. One, can you guys talk a little more about Game changer remind us the flow through and remind us the long term opportunity there? And then the second one is, can you give a little more color on some of the key new brand partnerships that you see coming down the pike for House of Sport?

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thanks, Robbie. We're so excited about Game changer. The Game changer business continues to do really well. And for those of you who I know engage with it for your kids, you love it. But we are now forecasting for this year $100,000,000 in Game changer revenue and it's a highly profitable software as a subscription model and it just continues to grow and dominate in the use for tech space.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

This past quarter for Game Changer, we had 5,500,000 unique active users, which was a 21% increase over last year. And they're averaging approximately 2,000,000 active users in the app every single day. The Game changer business is moving into more and more video streaming opportunities, which is enabling us to open basketball and some other sports. And those video games that were streamed increased 50%. So just from a strategic standpoint, we feel like Game changer and Dick's are so well aligned.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

We actually co presented what we call the Bat Lab this past weekend in Florida, where athletes from across the country were able to come in and demo all of the bats and give ratings. And it's just so exciting to see that brand become an even bigger part of our ecosystem.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Robbie, thanks for your comments. And let me build a little bit on what Lauren said in terms of the game changer platform and the excitement that we have, not just about the platform, but the combined capability on what it can mean for the athletes at TIX holistically. So like Lauren indicated, the size of the business that we have indicated, we expect this business to be about about $100,000,000 of sales in 2024 and it's growing at 30% to 40% CAGR each year and that has been the CAGR of this business for last several years. So couldn't be more excited about the size of the business, the top line momentum that the team is able to drive as well as the profitability of the business. As you can imagine, a SaaS business is extremely profitable.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

So it's a great complement to our capabilities. In terms of the long term opportunity, we believe that the youth's tech landscape or youth sports tech landscape is multi $1,000,000,000 and as you can imagine with $100,000,000 and probably the best tool that is out there in the marketplace, we feel that this opportunity is really ripe for continued growth into the future. Lauren, you want to address brand opportunities?

[Robert Ohmes, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thank you, Lynette.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Oh yes, thank you. Your second question. So House of Sport has been fantastic for us because of the key brand partnerships that we have been able to expand and also build. So even our national brands have just loved being able to bring their brand to life in our collab spaces, but we've also had exciting partnerships with new and emerging brands.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Things like GOAT, the lacrosse brand that we're very excited about. Right now, there's an incredible holiday presentation. Our vertical brands are being demoed in the collab space. We continue to have People Movement came in through a CoLab space. So there's a lot of brands that have come in through House of Sport that have translated into big brand partners for us and that are transferring through the entire chain.

[Robert Ohmes, Analyst at Bank of America]

Terrific. I look forward to being in one of your HOS stores on Black Friday.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yay. Thanks, Robbie. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of John Kernan with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on another good quarter.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Thank you. On Slide 11, you've had this slide in the deck for several earnings calls now. The $35,000,000 in omni channel house of Sports sales and then the $14,000,000 in Dick's Fieldhouse omnichannel sales in year 1 with the 20% 4 wall omni EBITDA margin, how does this trend how do you model this or expect this to trend into year 2 and 3 as these stores mature? I would imagine the House of Sport open to very high levels of productivity. How do these contribute to the comps, the store productivity and EBIT margin in year 2 and 3? Thank you.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes, John, great question. And we have talked about this in the prior calls as well. We could not be more excited about not only how strongly these stores are opening in year 1, both the House of Sport as well as Fieldhouse, but the comp trajectory that we are seeing in the select group of stores that have actually come 1 full year and in their second and on some stores actually in their 3rd year. On the trajectory that we are seeing in year 2, these stores come positively in the 2nd year as well because the excitement continues to build. 2, we are able to engage with the athletes in a slightly different way because our team members learn, the community learns on what and how to engage with the with kind of the experiences that are within the store, whether it is the field that is within the store, the climbing wall or the community center that is within the store.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

All of those become a little bit of a deeper point of engagement within the local market. So we are excited about the trajectory that we see in year 2. So we'll continue to provide more color as we learn more. But right now based on the trends that we have seen, we're excited about the overall opportunity as well as the results that we see in year 2.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

That's helpful. Thank you. I guess my follow-up is just on the soft lines piece of the business. I think it's been a big driver of comps for several quarters now dating back to last year. Can you talk about the outlook for the footwear business, footwear decks and how many more footwear decks you can put in place?

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

How many doors are on in HOKA? Can they be in additionally to what they're already in now and the outlook for that key part of the business in Q4?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah. First of all, maybe I'll start back more at the core category. So we have said there are 4 core categories where we are focused on driving our business and those are athletic apparel, athletic footwear, team sports and golf. So when you look at it and you look at not just those the performance in those categories as well as our results that we have delivered over the last several quarters, our growth continues to come from our core categories. And these are the exact categories we are continuing to gain strong share in the marketplace as well.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

When it comes to the footwear, we call it footwear is the engine that drives the chain. The amount of focus and attention that our merchandising team provides on that, outputs on that, the supply chain team works closely with the store organization. The work that we have done not just in premium full service footwear deck but on house of fleet capability that we have in our stores is allowing us to really differentiate the assortment that we have in our store, the service levels that we have in our stores and most importantly how well both the athletic footwear as well as the lifestyle footwear assortment that is available in our store. So we continue to be really excited about the opportunity in both in footwear and in apparel. Just to add a little bit on the brand result itself, we have ON, HOKA, Nike, New Balance and so we are excited about the brand assortment that we have available in these stores as well.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

90% of our stores today have premium full service footwear deck and we see opportunities to continue to expand on HOKA further deeper into our chain.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

That's great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Horvers with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Jolie Wasserman, Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan Chase & Co]

Hi. This is Jolie Wasserman on for Christopher Horvers. Thank you for taking our questions. Our first question is on your updated view for merch margin in 4Q. I know you spoke a little bit about the full year.

[Jolie Wasserman, Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan Chase & Co]

And right now, is it any different from what you were thinking in September? How 3Q played out relative to your expectations? And also, in shrink came in better than expected, what if that was normalized to 2019 levels?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

So let me start with Q3 results and then I'll talk to Q4. So Q4 sorry, on Q3, like we said, our gross profit increased 67 basis points and the merch margin increased 83 basis points. The merch margin increase on a year over year basis in Q3 was primarily driven by the mix and the quality of the product that and the assortment that we had available. So as we look to Q4, what we have guided is the expectation that our merch margin, we'll see how it plays out with all of the promotional landscape in Q4. But right now our expectation is our merch margin will increase again in Q4.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

In terms of the shrink, the shrink results came in slightly better to in line with our expectations in Q3. And right now, our expectation for shrink for Q4 is to be relatively flat on a year over year basis in Q4.

[Jolie Wasserman, Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan Chase & Co]

Got it. And our follow-up question, I know you spoke a little bit to weather earlier in the call with Fleece, but we were wondering if you could speak more to the cadence with the election, hurricanes, warm weather throughout the quarter.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes. So we said we had a really strong back to school season, so that was obviously early in the quarter. We had great growth in footwear, apparel, team sports. It was warmer than we might have liked in the last part of the quarter, but it didn't have a material impact on our comps. And we remain very excited about Q4.

[Jolie Wasserman, Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan Chase & Co]

An election pullback?

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes. We didn't see anything meaningful. It's good that I think it's good for the country that there's some certainty. And we're seeing people and nothing was material in the quarter. We're seeing the consumer just fine after that.

[Jolie Wasserman, Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan Chase & Co]

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser with UBS. Please go ahead.

[Michael Lasser, Equity Research Analyst - Hardlines, Broadlines & Food Retail at UBS Group]

Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my question. As you look to 2025, would you expect that your merchandise margin will continue to expand? And what opportunities outside of private label and inventory management might you have to drive further merch margin expansion into next year, especially because you'll be coming off of a pretty strong merch margin year this year?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Michael, thanks for the question and we'll give more specific 2025 guidance in the next quarter. The way to think about merch margin and quite frankly the opportunity that we have said pretty consistently in the last few years is again going back to the 3 big players that we see in opportunity to grow our merch margin. 1st and foremost is the quality of the assortment. The differentiated assortment, the access that we have and being able to control the full price selling opportunity, that continues to be a big driver, not just on the results that we have posted in the recent years and as well as as we look to the future. The second, the work that our pricing and pricing team have done in terms of the models that they have developed allows us to be really surgical and 1 on 1 basis to be able to offer the right level of promotion and pricing offerings to our athletes.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

And that's a capability that we'll continue to leverage to continue to optimize our price and the promotions. And the last thing that you called out is the opportunity we see with the vertical brands. Vertical brands carry 600 to 800 basis points of higher margins compared to the national brands. So the more we are able to drive the penetration there as we have been able to do with CLIA versus DSG, especially our flagship apparel brands. We see that opportunity to be even better as we go into the future.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

The biggest unknown right now which we talked earlier in the call is around tariffs. So we'll provide appropriate level of details at the next earnings call for 2025 March margin.

[Michael Lasser, Equity Research Analyst - Hardlines, Broadlines & Food Retail at UBS Group]

Okay. My follow-up question is your inventory is running up just under about 500,000,000 dollars year over year. There may be some timing given the calendar and impact on that. In the past, the market might have been concerned that would have created more merchandise margin headwind. Now it seems like Dick's has a better engine to be able to clear that out through the going, going, gone chain.

[Michael Lasser, Equity Research Analyst - Hardlines, Broadlines & Food Retail at UBS Group]

So A, is there less risk that you will be stuck in an inventory, a heavy inventory position that could create some merchandise margin risk in the Q4? And I know you said you expect merch margins to be up in the Q4, but it's I believe your guidance is up only 40 basis points for the year. So far, on average each quarter you've been up about 70 basis points. So A, how does that math work? And B, what's going to drive the merch margin expansion in the 4th quarter, especially in light of the inventory position? Thank you very much.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes. Thanks, Michael. I think your question is well taken. And I want to be really clear about the fact that we are really strategic and surgical in how we have invested in inventory in key items, key categories and things that we don't think are going to become toxic and we're not concerned are going to create a heavy markdown risk, as you mentioned. We have guided, as you said, to a Q4 margin increase and we are really confident this inventory is a key part of our strategy to really lean into having the right stuff for our athletes when they come into our store and online.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah, Michael, I'll build on what Lauren said. So you called out that the 40 basis points is the EBT expansion that we have at the midpoint. So a couple of things to keep in mind as you're thinking about Q4 and this was included in my prepared comments that we'll have an unfavorable impact to our sales to the tune of $200,000,000 and that will that is driven by the 53rd week last year as well as the calendar shift that we have talked about. The other is our pre opening expenses in Q4 are going to be slightly higher than last year and hopefully you saw that our pre opening expenses in Q3 came in under our expectations that we have shared as well. And that is primarily driven by the shift of some timing of the new store opening.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

As Lauren called out that we opened 3 new house of support locations right at the beginning of Q4. So there's a little bit of an impact in the profitability improvement on a Q4 basis when you consider the impact of pre opening shift as well as the $200,000,000 of unfavorable impact. And then the last thing I would call out is as expected, you can expect there's some level of caution that we have included in our guidance considering the macro and the shorter holiday calendar. So it's a combination of those 3 or 4 things that you are seeing the profitability impact in Q4.

[Michael Lasser, Equity Research Analyst - Hardlines, Broadlines & Food Retail at UBS Group]

Thank you very much and good luck.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

[Kelly Crago, Analyst at Citigroup]

Hi, this is Kelly on for Paul. Thanks for taking our question. Could you just elaborate more on your philosophy around SG and A? If you see sales and gross margin materialize ahead of plan, should we expect you to continue to invest some of the upside in key initiatives? Any chance you can quantify the impact of higher incentive comp on SG and A this year?

[Kelly Crago, Analyst at Citigroup]

And could you give us an idea of what sort of comp you need to leverage fixed costs within gross margin SG and A as we look to F 2020 5 and beyond?

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yeah. Kelly, I think there were a couple of questions there in that. So I think so maybe we'll start with the philosophy. Like I said before, our philosophy is to drive top line and bottom line growth for the company and continue to position the company for the long term growth, whether it is house support opportunity we see in investment, technology capabilities that we see in investment opportunities in. We will make appropriate decisions on where the investments need to be made.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Sometimes the investments need to be made in on the margin side. For example, opening up the distribution center that we have talked about in the near future. So that will be an investment on the margin side or the technology investments which predominantly sit within the SG and A. In terms of the expectations for or the outlook for the SG and A for future year, I would say we'll provide our 25 guidance in the next quarter but you can continue to look to us to drive the top line and the bottom line improvement. In terms of the comp needed to leverage the SG and A, it will all depend on where and what levels of investments we see.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

So I don't know if I want to give a specific number associated with that but I would say the focus for us is continuing to drive the top line and the bottom line improvement.

[Kelly Crago, Analyst at Citigroup]

Thank you. And just to follow-up, I think you said you plan to open another 15 houses for locations in 2025. Is that the total sort of new store openings we should have expected in F25? Meaning, does that include the field house concepts? And just could you give us more color on the relocations versus remodels of existing locations?

[Kelly Crago, Analyst at Citigroup]

Specifically, what sort of what level of remodels do you expect to do in 2025? And any color on the lift productivity lift you see after you do a remodel? Thanks.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Okay, Kelly. There were a number of questions there and I'll see if I can address all of them. So first of all, in terms of the store count, the 15 House of Sport openings are just House of Sport openings. On top of that, we expect to open an additional twenty FieldHouse locations. There will be some Golf Galaxy openings as well and we'll provide the store count and the new store opening expectations in 2025.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

However, I want to reiterate again something that I said before that vast majority of the field house locations as well as house support locations, especially the house support locations will be relocation or remodeled. So you won't see a lot of new store count happening as we look to 2025 as well. If you look at the results, other than the store count that we have provided for 2024, we are seeing only a 2% increase in square footage on a year over year basis driven by the new store openings. We'll provide more details as we share our 25 outlook for the new store count openings.

[Kelly Crago, Analyst at Citigroup]

Thanks. Best of luck.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your final question will come from Justin Kleber with Baird. Please go ahead.

[Justin Kleber, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Lauren, you mentioned in your response to a prior question that the tail end of the quarter being softer. I guess that's not surprising given how warm October was. But did that softer exit rate play a role in the transaction decline that you experienced in the 3rd quarter?

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

No, and thank you for asking the question because I want to clear that up. We had a great quarter. Every month was a great quarter. And so all I was mentioning is that weather did not play a material impact in the quarter overall and maybe we saw a little bit of it in the back half. So, I just don't want you to take away that we had a dip in the tail end of the quarter.

[Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes. Justin and just to add to what Lauren said, you see the puts and takes with the weather within our portfolio of categories that we have. So if you see a softer performance in the cold weather categories, what you also saw or you also see is some of the favorable trends in the categories that do well in kind of the moderate temperatures. So for example, the golf business actually exceeded our expectations in the back half. So this is the reason we really like the portfolio of products that we have that the interplay between these categories doesn't insulate us from the weather impact but it allows us to navigate the month over month transitions as much better than we have been able to do in the past.

[Justin Kleber, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Okay. That makes sense. Thanks, Navdeep. And then my follow-up is just given the continued strength in House of Sport, I wanted to ask about what elements of House of Sport are you finding most impactful within the Fieldhouse stores?

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Yes. Thanks. Great question. As you're pointing out that House of Sport is doing so well for all the reasons we talked about and it's such an exciting concept, but it is the cornerstone of our strategy to just reposition our entire portfolio. And what we mean by that is the things that are doing so great and are such a big part of house of support are things like improved service, better assortment and access to product experiences.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

All of those things are translating into our field house concept, which is honestly from a visual presentation standpoint, looks just like a house of sport, a smaller version of a house of sport, but it has all of those elevated aspects, to the degree that we can fit them into a 50,000 square foot box. But it's also translating through our entire organization. So things like the elevated service, elevating product, you're going to see that as we reposition our entire portfolio, House of Sport has a longer impact than you might think just looking at the House of Sport stores.

[Operator]

I will now turn the conference back over to Lauren Hulbert, Chief Executive Officer, for closing comments.

[Lauren Hobart, President and CEO at DICK’S Sporting Goods]

Okay. Well, thank you all for your interest in Dick's Sporting Goods. I hope everyone has a happy holiday. And to our team, I'm excited to see you out in the stores this week. Have a great holiday weekend. Thanks.

[Operator]

And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Lauren Hobart, President and CEO
• Navdeep Gupta, Executive VP & CFO

Analysts

• Nate Gilch, Senior Director, IR at DICK’S Sporting Goods
• Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays
• Simeon Gutman, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Brian Nagel, MD & Senior Analyst - Consumer Growth & eCommerce at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.
• Kate McShane, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs
• Robert Ohmes, Analyst at Bank of America
• John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen
• Jolie Wasserman, Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan Chase & Co
• Michael Lasser, Equity Research Analyst - Hardlines, Broadlines & Food Retail at UBS Group
• Kelly Crago, Analyst at Citigroup
• Justin Kleber, Senior Research Analyst at Baird