Academy Sports & Outdoors, Inc. (ASO) Business

Item 1. Business

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read together with our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. See the section of this Annual Report entitled “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.” When reviewing the discussion below, you should keep in mind the substantial risks and uncertainties that characterize our business. Known material factors that could affect our financial performance and actual results, and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements included in this discussion or otherwise made by our management, are described in the “Risk Factors” section of this Annual Report.

Who We Are

Academy Sports + Outdoors is a leading full-line sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer in the United States. Originally founded in 1938 as a family business in Texas, we now operate 322 stores across 21 contiguous states as of January 31, 2026. Our mission is to provide “Fun for All” and we fulfill this mission with a localized merchandising strategy and value proposition that deeply connect with a broad range of consumers. Our product assortment focuses on key categories of outdoor, sports & recreation, apparel, and footwear (representing 31%, 22%, 27% and 20% of our 2025 net sales, respectively) through both leading national brands and a portfolio of 19 private label brands, which go well beyond traditional sporting goods and apparel offerings.

We believe the following attributes differentiate us from our competitors:

•Value-based assortment that enables our customers to participate and have fun, no matter their budget.

•Broad assortment that extends beyond sporting goods and apparel to outdoor recreation and is localized for individual stores.

•Emerging, growing and profitable omnichannel strategy that leverages our buy-online-pickup-in-store program (“BOPIS”) and shipping fulfillment capabilities.

•Strong customer loyalty, with opportunities to increase penetration in existing markets.

•Regional focus primarily in the southern United States with a growing presence in some of the fastest-growing Metropolitan Statistical Areas (or “MSAs”).

•Core customers comprising active families that we support with one-stop shop convenience.

•Significant whitespace opportunity for new stores for both existing and adjacent geographies and new markets.

We believe we sit in a sweet-spot of consumer demand, offering a broad, value-based assortment of sporting goods and outdoor recreation products, so our customers can participate and have fun, no matter their budget. We carefully curate our products to provide the right assortment that appeals to customers from beginners to experts, including families and casual participants.

Our access to national brand and private label brand merchandise creates a comprehensive portfolio of value-based and diversified products, spanning various price-points, that differentiates our assortment from our peers. Our category, brand and price-point mix is unique to Academy and difficult to replicate at other retailers. Approximately 78% of our 2025 merchandise sales was comprised of national brand products, with the remainder coming from exclusive products in our portfolio of private label brands. No single brand we carry accounted for more than approximately 12% of our 2025 sales.

We endeavor to offer products for customers of all ages, incomes and aspirations across sporting and outdoor recreation activities, seasons and experience levels. As such, we have a balanced, year-round business and a large customer base. Our average customer visits our stores anywhere from two to three times per year.

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Merchandising

Our merchandise consists of a full range of industry-leading national brands and strong private brands providing our customers with diversified product categories of good, better, and best price points. We deliver Academy’s unique product assortment through our strong partnerships with our vendors. In 2025, we purchased merchandise from approximately 1,500 vendors. For 2025, 2024 and 2023 no vendor represented more than 12% of our total purchases. Our relationships with key brands, on-trend private brands, and exclusive product offerings differentiates our assortment from our peers.

We have preferred access to hundreds of well-recognized national brands, such as Nike, including its Jordan Brand, Under Armour, adidas, Winchester, Columbia Sportswear, The North Face, Brooks, Skechers, Yeti, Stanley and Carhartt, which are critical to our market penetration. These and some of our other national brands rely on us to broaden their consumer reach, which fosters a mutually beneficial relationship when it comes to pricing and assortment. We play a critical role in delivering customer volume for these brands. We complement our national brand assortment with our private label brand assortment, which is priced below the national brand price spectrum. As such, we receive favorable product allocations from leading suppliers.

Our private label brand portfolio consists of 19 brands, including Magellan Outdoors, Academy Sports + Outdoors, BCG, O'rageous, Game Winner, Outdoor Gourmet, Freely, Redfield, H2OX, and R.O.W. Our private label brand strategy focuses on in-filling categories and price points that our national brand products may not satisfy. Our private label brand offerings support and complement our overall merchandising strategy due to limited price-point overlap with national brands. Additionally, our private label brands generate strong brand equity and drive significant customer loyalty. Approximately 53% of our customers purchased a private label brand from us in 2025 and approximately 22% of our 2025 merchandise sales was comprised of private brand products.

As of January 31, 2026, we generally organized our merchandise in four divisions made up of sixteen categories as follows:

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The following table sets forth the approximate amount of sales (all of which are based in the U.S.) by merchandise divisions for the periods presented (amounts in thousands):

(1)Certain products and categories were recategorized in the current fiscal year amongst various categories and divisions, respectively, to better align with our current merchandising strategy and view of the business. As a result, we have reclassified sales between divisions for 2024 and 2023 for comparability purposes. This reclassification is in divisional presentation only and did not impact the overall net sales balances previously disclosed.

(2)E-commerce sales represented 11.7%, 10.5% and 10.7% of merchandise sales for 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

(3) Other sales consisted primarily of gift card breakage income, credit card bounties and royalties, shipping income, sales return allowance and other items.

Stores

Our stores, all of which are based in the U.S., are designed to provide our customers with an easy-in, easy-out shopping experience. The interior of most of our stores are built around a central “racetrack” aisle that allows customers to efficiently navigate our selling floor. Additionally, our stores generally have consistent store layouts providing our customers familiarity across our entire store base. We seek to offer our customers a strong merchandise assortment and a localized customer experience, which is facilitated by various types of merchandise fixtures and our large selling floor. Our central “racetrack” aisle and adjacent end-cap merchandising space allows us to adjust our inventory presentations throughout our various selling seasons.

Our stores average approximately 70,000 gross square feet, of which approximately 85% is dedicated to selling space. Our store locations are typically positioned adjacent to major highways or thoroughfares, allowing customers to easily locate our stores. We seek to position our stores in areas with certain population densities, demographics and other characteristics to maximize sales. These markets consist of metropolitan, suburban and smaller cities. Additionally, our stores are typically placed in retail centers adjacent to co-tenants who drive significant traffic. At this time, no stores are connected to malls. We seek to lease all of our stores in long-term lease agreements with third-party landlords, which typically range from 15 to 20 years with various renewal options and lease escalation structures. Of the 322 stores operated as of January 31, 2026, 321 are leased from third parties and one store is owned by the Company.

We are active members of the communities in which we operate, and our long-time customers have grown up with Academy and have passed their passion for us on to the next generation, enabling us to benefit from strong customer loyalty and shopping frequency.

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As of January 31, 2026, the number of stores that we operated, exclusively in the U.S., by state was as follows:

We believe our real estate strategy has positioned us well for further expansion, and our track record has demonstrated that we can open and operate stores profitably. We believe there is significant near-term opportunity for expansion in both new and existing markets.

Marketing

Our marketing approach is anchored in helping Always Game Families have fun in their pursuit of sports and outdoors activities. The strategy is designed to generate awareness and consideration for the Academy brand while improving intent to purchase across our broad selection of fun categories of top national and private brands at a compelling value within our assortment. We analyze first-party data from across our customer data ecosystem, inclusive of our data lake for analysis/model-building and our Customer Data Platform for audience creation and activation. We combine insights from our customer data ecosystem with customer research studies and retail industry market share data sources to develop annual and seasonal go-to-market strategies that lead to the creation of engaging content and customer experiences that are communicated across a diverse range of owned and paid media channels.

Furthermore, using data from our data lake, we leverage our Customer Data Platform to generate first-party data audiences for targeted customer lifecycle management campaigns designed to retain current customers and encourage omnichannel shopping behaviors. First-party data is also used to inform creation of third-party data audiences across a mix of media channels to drive engagement and acquisition of new customers through the use of brand design, influencer and customer created content. These campaigns are executed across a blend of digital and traditional media, including paid search, email, text message, mobile app, digital advertising networks, affiliates, and social media along with linear and digital video, audio, print, outdoor and direct mail.

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We are focused on implementing and continually improving our customer centric marketing technologies, omnichannel services and experiences to save customers time and money while improving the long-term health of our customer portfolio. In July 2024, we launched our loyalty platform, myAcademy Rewards, which provides us a powerful tool to build a deeper connection and understanding of our customers. The Academy Credit Card program, myAcademy Rewards, and Academy Sports + Outdoors app are foundational to build loyalty among customers while providing a seamless omnichannel shopping experience.

We are committed to making a positive impact on the communities we serve and partner with over 523 organizations, including youth sports leagues that reach approximately 1.1 million participants. We also partner with school districts, professional sports properties, local parks, hunting and fishing organizations, military bases and local first responders.

Distribution Centers

We operate three distribution centers in Katy, Texas; Twiggs County, Georgia; and Cookeville, Tennessee. The distribution centers receive and store products from vendors and use sophisticated sorting and logistical equipment to fill the product needs of the retail store locations they serve, as well as to fulfill e-commerce orders from customers. Our distribution centers are leased under long-term agreements. Third-party trucking companies are used to disburse inventory from the distribution centers to and from our stores. These distribution centers are strategically located throughout our footprint to efficiently serve our retail locations and have the capacity to service up to approximately 150 stores per distribution center.

Competition

The retail sporting goods and outdoor industry is highly competitive based on many variables including price, product assortment, customer service, omnichannel experience and store locations. We compete with mass merchants, department stores, large format sporting goods and outdoor stores, traditional sporting goods and outdoor stores, specialty retailers, and online retailers. We seek to attract a broad range of consumers by providing sporting goods and outdoor recreation products that appeal to customers of all experience levels, including families and casual participants. We differentiate ourselves from our competitors by providing a value-based assortment through both leading national brands and our private label brands. For additional information related to our competitors, see the risk factors herein in “Item 1A. Risk Factors”.

Information Systems

Our information systems are critical to our day-to-day operations as well as to our long-term growth strategies. Our technology is integrated across multiple functions throughout the organization, providing the data analysis, automation and solutions necessary to support our communications, inventory and supply chain management, store operations, distribution, point-of-sale, e-commerce, customer, financial reporting and accounting functions. Our technology is the foundation of our merchandising and marketing functions; it processes our customers’ orders and integrates our e-commerce sales with stores. We are leveraging our data to make more informed decisions around inventory, marketing, store-level operations, and customer engagement. We have agreements with third parties to provide hosting services and administrative support for portions of our infrastructure, and utilize cloud-based systems in addition to those hosted on premises.

Seasonality

Our business is subject to seasonal fluctuations. A significant portion of our net sales and profits is driven by summer holidays, such as Memorial Day, Father’s Day and Independence Day, during the second quarter. Our net sales and profits are also impacted by the July/August back-to-school selling season during the second and third quarters, the November/December holiday selling season, and in part by the sales of cold weather sporting goods and apparel during the fourth quarter.

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Our Team Members

Our mission is to provide “Fun for All” and a critical component to our success is our people. As of January 31, 2026, we employed approximately 23,000 team members in the U.S. and Hong Kong. Of those team members, approximately 45% were full-time and 55% were part-time. Our employment levels may fluctuate over the course of the year due to the seasonality of our business. None of our team members are covered by collective bargaining agreements. The Company believes that it has a good working relationship with its team members.

Culture and Core Values. We strive to provide rewarding careers, benefits, and a workplace culture where team members are empowered to be their authentic self—drawing on their unique perspectives, passions, skills, interests, and experiences in their day-to-day jobs. Our core values establish a strong foundation for our culture and represent the key expectations we have of our team members. These include the following:

•Customer focus and service

•Excellence in all we do

•Responsible leadership

•Initiative with urgency

•Students of the business

•Integrity always

•Positive impact on our communities

Talent Management. We believe the best way to serve our customers is to invest in top talent, be open to innovation, and have the vision to succeed. We are focused on creating a winning team by recruiting and retaining great people, promoting teamwork, and fostering an enjoyable and rewarding work environment. We also strive to provide all team members with opportunities for personal growth, cross-functional training, job opportunities and career advancement. We offer a mix of instructor-led, online, and blended courses in several key areas, including Career Development and Leadership Development. Our wide variety of courses ranges from job specific (i.e., functional) to broad-based leadership training to safety, security, ethics, and compliance training. We also engage in regular and ongoing feedback, annual performance reviews and annual talent calibration conversations. Succession planning is conducted on an annual basis to identify suitable internal candidates for key positions within the Company.

Compensation and Benefits. In addition to offering competitive compensation, we offer comprehensive benefits to eligible team members. Our benefits include, but are not limited to: medical, dental, and vision insurance; participation in the Company’s 401(k) retirement savings plan with a Company match; participation in the Company’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan; paid time off; professional and educational reimbursement programs; medical, family, and bereavement leave; life, legal, pet, and accident insurance; paid parental leave; and a team member discount.

Workplace, Health and Safety. The health and safety of our customers, team members, and communities is our top priority. We strive to ensure that a safe and hygienic working environment is provided and that occupational health and safety practices which prevent accidents and injury are promoted. Throughout our stores, distribution centers, and corporate headquarters, we employ policies, procedures, and training to promote safe and healthy work environments.

Our team member handbook outlines safety expectations, but we also empower our team members with knowledge and skills from various safety training courses during the onboarding process and on an ongoing basis through our learning engagement system with topics such as incident reporting, evacuation, active shooter response, hazardous materials, and heat safety. We continue to focus on developing and driving our safety-first culture through awareness, training, and actions to reduce the frequency and severity of safety incidents.

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Information about our Executive Officers

Below is a list of our executive officers, their respective ages as of March 17, 2026 and a brief account of the business experience of each of them.

Steven (Steve) P. Lawrence has served as Chief Executive Officer and on the Board of Directors since June 2023. Mr. Lawrence joined the Company in February 2019 as Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Lawrence was President, Chief Executive Officer and served on the board of directors at francesca’s from October 2016 to January 2019. From May 2012 to September 2016, he served as Chief Merchandising Officer at Stage Stores. Mr. Lawrence also spent nearly 12 years working in various merchandising leadership roles at J.C. Penney after 10 years at Foley’s/May Co. Mr. Lawrence obtained his Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of Notre Dame.

Samuel (Sam) J. Johnson has served as President since October 2023. Mr. Johnson joined the Company in April 2017 as Executive Vice President, Retail Operations. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Johnson spent seven years with hhgregg, Inc., where he most recently served as Chief Retail Officer. While at hhgregg, Inc., he led functions including store operations, customer relations, commercial sales, real estate and visual merchandising. Prior to hhgregg, Inc., he spent more than 20 years in various leadership roles with Sears Holdings Corporation, including Vice President of Small Stores.

Earl Carlton (Carl) Ford IV has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since July 2023. Mr. Ford joined the Company in January 2019, and served as the Senior Vice President, Finance, where he led the Financial Planning and Analysis function of the Company from January 2019 to July 2023 and the Loss Prevention and Inventory Control teams from February 2020 to July 2023. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Ford served as the Vice President of Financial Planning & Analysis at Belk, Inc. He also served as the Vice President of Internal Audit and held other leadership roles in accounting and treasury during his 15 years at Belk, Inc. Prior to joining Belk, Inc., Mr. Ford worked for Deloitte & Touche in their Audit practice. Mr. Ford holds a Master's Degree in Accounting from the University of Alabama, a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting from the University of Southern Mississippi and is an active Certified Public Accountant.

Matthew (Matt) McCabe has served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer since June 2023. Mr. McCabe joined the Company in December 2016 as the Vice President, Divisional Merchandise Manager of Athletic and Licensed Apparel and served as the Senior Vice President, General Merchandise Manager of Footwear from September 2017 to June 2023. In this role, he was responsible for setting the merchandising objectives and business strategy for the Footwear division. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. McCabe served as Vice President at Golfsmith International, where he led the apparel, footwear and soft consumables buying and private brand businesses. He has more than 25 years of experience in men's and women's apparel and footwear, and held various leadership roles at The Bon Ton Department Stores, Bachrach, Sears & Roebuck Co., and Mark Shale. Mr. McCabe holds a Bachelor of Science from Miami University.

Intellectual Property

Our trademarks, service marks, copyrights, patents, processes, trade secrets, domain names and other intellectual property, including our Academy Sports + Outdoors brand, our private label brands, such as Academy Sports + Outdoors, Magellan Outdoors, BCG, O’rageous, Game Winner, Outdoor Gourmet, Freely, R.O.W., Redfield, and H2OX, and our designs, names, slogans, images and trade dress associated with these brands, are valuable assets that are critical to our success.

We also enter into intellectual property agreements whereby the Company receives the right to use third-party owned trademarks typically in exchange for royalties. These agreements typically contain a one to three-year term and contractual payment amounts required to be paid by the Company.

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Governmental Regulations

We operate in a complex regulatory and legal environment that exposes us to regulatory, compliance and litigation risks that could materially affect our operations and financial results. Specifically, we are subject to regulation by numerous federal, state and local regulatory agencies and authorities, including the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Department of Justice, Department of Treasury, Federal Trade Commission, Customs and Border Protection, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, SEC, Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, and Environmental Protection Agency and comparable state and local agencies.

Laws and regulations affecting our business may change, sometimes frequently and significantly, as a result of political, economic, social or other events. Some of the federal, state or local laws and regulations that affect us include but are not limited to:

•consumer product safety, product liability or consumer protection laws;

•laws related to advertising, marketing, pricing and selling our products, including but not limited to firearms, ammunition, and related accessories;

•labor and employment laws, including wage and hour laws and forced labor prevention laws;

•tax laws or interpretations thereof, including collection of state sales tax on e-commerce sales;

•data protection and privacy laws and regulations;

•environmental laws and regulations;

•hazardous material laws and regulations;

•customs or import and export laws and regulations, including collection of tariffs on product imports;

•intellectual property laws;

•antitrust and competition regulations;

•banking and anti-money laundering regulations;

•Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, and similar state and local laws and regulations;

•website design and content regulations;

•U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA and other anti-corruption laws; and

•securities and exchange laws and regulations.

We are a federally licensed firearms dealer, and we sell firearms, ammunition, and related accessories, including suppressors. Firearms represented approximately 6% of our net sales in 2025. Numerous federal, state and local laws and regulations govern the procurement, transportation, storage, distribution and sale and marketing of firearms, ammunition, and related accessories, including the regulations governing the performance of federally and state mandated procedures for determining customer firearm purchase eligibility (such as age and residency verification, background checks and proper completion of required paperwork). In June 2021, the United States Department of Justice announced a policy emphasizing “zero tolerance” for willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers; in 2025 that policy was repealed. Federal, state, and local agencies continue to regulate and enforce compliance requirements applicable to firearms dealers. In the future, there may be increased federal, state or local regulation and enforcement affecting the sale of firearms, ammunition, and related accessories, including taxation or restrictions on the type of firearms, ammunition, and accessories available for retail sale, which could reduce our sales and profitability.

For additional information, see the risk factors herein in “Item 1A. Risk Factors” under the sub-caption “Legal and Regulatory Risks”.

Available Information

Our website address is www.academy.com. We use our website as a channel of distribution for company information. We will make available free of charge on the Investor Relations section of our website our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. We will also make available through our website other reports filed with or furnished to the SEC under the Exchange Act, including our proxy statements and reports filed by officers and directors under Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act, as well as our Ethics and Code of Conduct Policy. Financial and other material information regarding the Company is routinely posted on our website and is readily accessible. We do not intend for information contained on our website to be part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.