5 years after the greatest sporting goods mishap in history...

Dicks blows. Field and stream is also trash. Went looking for a speckle-belly goose call last week and they had 1 Canada goose call. 1! And about 10-12 duck calls all locked in a display case. Also looked for an extended choke tube for my benelli. They didn't have any. I've been to field and stream twice and should've learned the first time that it sucks. I've been knowing dicks was awful. Everybody knows that.

Sorry for the Dear Facebook post, but this time of year always takes me back to the miserable time I spent driving sales for them. I worked with a ton of knowledgeable, passionate people who were hamstrung at every opportunity by a corporate machine that had real, genuine antipathy for its own consumer base.

The frickers quit raising money for St Judes Hospital because they could get a cut off donations by starting their own sports-themed charity.

Their name says it all DICKS


My kid loved going their, and we did spend money in their stores in Texas. Seemed comparable to Academy but had a better selection of quality youth Baseball, Football gear.

Shoe department was the best in town for Athletic shoes

I hate dicks and F&S. The people working there are idiots and their inventory is shite.

I can say two nice things about Dick’s/FnS.

1. My 2 year old loves to look at all the animals.

2. They are slightly better than Gander Mountain was.

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How long before you think they shut down or sell out?

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They still have a while left to whither on the vine. They had massive amounts of cash on hand due to smart management through the 00s, then as other sporting goods retailers began to go bankrupt, they went super aggressive and opened up a ton of new stores to mixed results.

Their major problems:

1. They have no solution to Academy. I was in a pretty high performing store (roughly 11M/yr). Academy opened up across town and pulled 3M out the first year, 2M in Apparel and another 1M from guns/hunting. Academy mostly carries second run product (excepting shoes) but customers don't care if a $20 Nike shirt is last year's color, only that it's $10 cheaper.

2. They have no solution to the decline in golf business. Young people not playing + golf companies churning out 2 sets of clubs a year = inventory catastrophe. Again, when so much of the Dicks appeal is carrying the newest and best product, they're in a tight spot when the few people who are shopping for a driver know they can wait 6 months and get it for $200 less.

3. Their expansion strategy raised revenue but at a massive cost to payroll and experience. When I started there, we had 10-12 workers on the floor at all times, starting at 15-20% over minimum wage. By the time I left, it was down to 6-7 with all new hires at minimum. You walk in now and it looks like a ghost town - 1 person covering 3 depts.

Best case scenario would be to ditch Ed Stack as CEO and hire someone who can turn them into Best Buy. They could make it as the premier sporting goods store if they were willing to just give people what they want, but the current leadership is too inflexible, too stuck in the past.

Well when I do to gym, I really don't care if I'm wearing this years style. Just want comfort.

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In Houston there’s just too many options to ever have to go to Dicks or F&S.

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In the BR area, the options SUCK. We have a choice of Dicks, Academy and then Walmart, which is only slightly worse than Academy.