Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE: DKS) is a sporting goods retailer, headquartered on the grounds of Pittsburgh International Airport in Findlay Township near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dick's has 409 stores in 40 states as of August 1, 2009, primarily in the eastern half of the United States. The company also owns Golf Galaxy, Inc., a multi-channel golf specialty retailer, with 91 stores in 31 states.[3]
Founded in 1948 by Richard "Dick" Stack at the age of 18, the chain has expanded enormously since the 1990s, in part through acquisitions, and is now one of the largest in the world.

Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. (Dick’s), incorporated in 1948, is a sporting goods retailer offering a range of brand name sporting goods equipment, apparel, and footwear in a specialty store environment. As of January 30, 2010, the Company operated 419 Dick’s Sporting Goods stores in 40 states and 91 Golf Galaxy stores in 31 states. Dick’s carry a range of brands, including Nike, The North Face, Columbia, adidas, TaylorMade, Callaway and Under Armour, as well as private label products sold under names such as Maxfli, Tailgate Gear and Walter Hagen and private brand products, such as its lines of Nike ACG, Slazenger, Umbro, Reebok, Field & Stream and adidas baseball merchandise, which are available only in the Company’s stores.
The Company’s stores contain five stand-alone specialty stores. A typical store has in-store specialty shops, including the Golf Pro Shop, a golf shop with a putting green and hitting area and video monitors featuring golf tournaments and instruction on the Golf Channel or other sources; the Footwear Center, featuring hardwood floors, a track for testing athletic shoes and a bank of video monitors playing sporting events; the Fitness Center, providing a selection of equipment for fitness activities, including a cycle shop, designed to sell and service bikes, complete with a mechanics’ work area and equipment on the sales floor; the Lodge for the hunting and fishing customer, designed to have the look of a bait and tackle shop, and Team Sports, a seasonal sports area displaying sports equipment and athletic apparel associated with specific seasonal sports, such as football and baseball. Its stores allows customers to test golf clubs in an indoor driving range, shoot bows in its archery range, or run on its footwear track.
Apparel
The Company’s apparel category consists of athletic apparel, outerwear and sportswear designed for a range of activities and performance levels, as well as apparel designed and fabricated for specific sports in men’s, women’s and children’s assortments. Technical and performance specific apparel includes offerings for sports, such as golf, tennis, running, fitness, soccer, baseball, football, hockey, swimming, cycling and licensed products. Basic sportswear includes T-shirts, shorts, sweats and warm-ups.
Footwear
The Company’s Footwear Center, featuring hardwood floors and a track for testing athletic shoes, offers a range of athletic shoes for running and walking, tennis, fitness and cross training, basketball and hiking. In addition, it also carries specialty footwear, including casual footwear and a range of cleated shoes for baseball, football, soccer and lacrosse. Other important categories within the footwear department are boots, socks and accessories.
Hardlines
The Company’s product lines include a range of fitness equipment, including treadmills, elliptical trainers, stationary bicycles, home gyms, free weights and weight benches. A full range of equipment and accessories are available for team sports, such as football, baseball, softball, basketball, hockey, soccer, bowling and lacrosse. Family recreation offerings include lawn games and table games, such as ping-pong, foosball and air hockey. The Lodge caters to the outdoorsman and includes a range of equipment for hunting, fishing, camping and water sports. Hunting products include rifles, shotguns, ammunition, global positioning systems, hunting apparel, boots and optics including binoculars and scopes, knives and cutlery, archery equipment and accessories. Fishing gear, such as rods, reels, tackle and accessories are offered along with camping equipment, including tents, sleeping bags and other accessories. Equipment offerings for marine and water sports include navigational electronics, water skis, rafts, kayaks, canoes and accessories.
The Golf Pro Shop includes a complete range of golf clubs and club sets, bags, balls, shoes, teaching aids and accessories. It provides a range of golf services, from custom club fitting, club repair, grip installation and shaft installation for drivers, irons and putters. The Golf Pro Shop carries a range of products featuring golf suppliers, such as TaylorMade, Callaway, Titleist, Cobra, FootJoy and Nike Golf, as well as its brands, Walter Hagen, Maxfli and Slazenger. Its Cycle Shop features a range of bicycle motocross (BMX), all-terrain, freestyle and touring bicycles, scooters and skateboards. In addition, it also offers a range of cycling accessories, including helmets, bicycle carrier racks, gloves, water bottles and repair and maintenance parts.

The initial success of the company's web site stalled in 2000. First Dick's needed to change the web site address to dickssportinggoods.com because family Internet filters prevented access to the site. While the earlier advertising campaign succeeded in increasing traffic to the site, the coupons offered cut too deeply into profits. By April 2001 the company decided to abandon active management of the web site because it had become unprofitable. The company then outsourced handling of the site to Global Sports Interactive (GSI), which specialized in online retailing of sporting goods. Through a ten-year agreement Dick's licensed the company name to GSI in return for royalty payments on goods sold online; Dick's opted to receive stock in lieu of cash.
Venture Capital and Public Stock Offering Funding Growth: Early 2000s
With investment from Vulcan Northwest Venture Capital, Dick's accelerated its pace of growth, opening a total of 22 stores in 2000 and 20 stores in 2001. In addition to expansion in existing markets, Dick's extended its reach farther west, to Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri, and south, to North and South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. The company tended to locate stores in smaller cities, rather than the more competitive major metropolitan markets. For instance, Dick's chose to open a store in Macon, Georgia, rather than in the Atlanta area. Dick's clustered stores to make effective use of advertising spending. Dick's entered the Kansas City market in the fall of 2000 with a spectacular grand opening of five stores simultaneously on one Sunday. New specialty shop features included the provision of hunting and fishing licenses at the Sportsman's Lodge and a swing speed analyzer to assist customers in selecting golf clubs at the Pro Shop.
Dick's initiated a number of marketing initiatives to attract and retain customers. The "Scorecard" gave rebates to loyal customers based on their record of purchases; by August 2002 the company counted over one million participants. A new call service provided in-store telephone call boxes to request sales assistance from the fitting rooms. Dick's sought to serve families better by adding more children's merchandise and expanding the women's department to nearly triple the amount of equipment, apparel, and footwear. The company introduced casual footwear from Eastland, Clark's, and Columbia Sportswear. Dick's launched two new private label brands of apparel, Ativa for women and Walter Hagen for men.
In February 2002 Dick's opened a new store in the Pittsburgh area that would serve as a prototype for future stores. The two-story, 80,000-square-foot store featured 60-foot-high ceilings and red brick walls to mimic the feel of a sports stadium. The store refined all of the features of existing stores, such as well-defined specialty stores with unique signage. Televisions displayed instructional videos and sporting events relevant to that area of the store. The store incorporated a new emphasis on families, with lifestyle photography that featured kids, such as members of a little league team sitting in a dugout, and everyday athletes--not just celebrities--participating in sports and exercise. Also, old photographs of Dick Stack at the original Binghamton store were enlarged and displayed in the store.
Other new store openings in 2002 included the company's first Nebraska store, which opened in Omaha in May. A total of 15 new stores planned for 2002 included units in Wichita, Kansas; Lansing, Michigan; Worcester, Massachusetts; Normal, Illinois; and Evansville, Indiana. By the time of the company's initial offering of stock in October 2002, Dick's operated 134 stores in 24 states, including 20 each in New York and Ohio, 22 in Pennsylvania, six each in Maryland and New Jersey, seven in Michigan, and 13 in North Carolina. Additional stores were located in Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Virginia.
In October 2002 Dick's went public, offering 7.3 million shares of stock at $12.25 per share. Dick's attracted investors in a difficult market based on reported sales of $1.1 billion and net income of $23.5 million in the fiscal year ended February 2, 2002. In the prospectus Dick's presented the company as "the most profitable full-line sporting goods retailer as compared to the six largest full-line sporting goods retailers in the United States which are publicly traded. ..." Shares offered directly by the company raised $27.9 million for debt repayment, new store openings, and working capital. Shortly after the initial public offering, Dick's opened stores in Barboursville, West Virginia, and Fredericksburg, Virginia. New stores were also under construction in Omaha and Wichita, with future plans involving expansion into Texas and Oklahoma markets.
Principal Competitors: Foot Locker, Inc.; Gart Sports Company; Galyan's Trading Company; Hibbett Sporting Goods, Inc.; The Sports Authority, Inc.; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.


OVERALL
Beta: 1.31
Market Cap (Mil.): $4,826.07
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 119.90
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
DKS Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): 27.06 4.86 13.77
EPS (TTM): 30.28 -- --
ROI: 11.38 5.17 1.32
ROE: 14.88 6.26 2.19

Statistics:
Public Company
Founded: 1948 as Dick's Clothing and Sporting Goods
Employees: 9,000
Sales: $1.05 billion (2002)
Stock Exchanges: New York
Ticker Symbol: DKS
NAIC: 451110 Sporting Goods Stores


Company Perspectives:
Mission: To be the #1 sports and fitness specialty retailer for all athletes and outdoor enthusiasts through the relentless improvement of everything we do.


Key Dates:
1948: Dick Stack starts his own bait-and-tackle shop in Binghamton, New York.
1958: The small shop becomes a full-fledged sporting goods store, known as Dick's Clothing and Sporting Goods.
1984: After Dick Stack retires, his son Edward becomes CEO and president; plans expansion of sporting goods superstore concept.
1992: Dick's begins expansion outside Binghamton area.
1994: Dick's relocates to Pittsburgh; the company operates 22 stores in four states.
1996: Over 50 stores are in operation, generating an estimated $10 million in sales per store.
1999: Chain Store Age Executive names Edward Stack Retail Entrepreneur of the Year; company name is changed to Dick's Sporting Goods.
2001: Sales exceed $1 billion with more than 130 stores.
2002: Dick's Sporting Goods becomes a public company.

Name Age Since Current Position
Stack, Edward 56 2009 Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Schmidt, Joseph 51 2009 President, Chief Operating Officer
Colombo, William 55 2008 Vice Chairman of the Board
Kullman, Timothy 55 2008 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President - Finance and Administration
Whitsett, Peter 45 2010 Executive Vice President - Global Merchandising, Division President of Golf Galaxy
Oliver, Joseph 51 2009 Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer, Controller
Hobart, Lauren 42 2011 Chief Marketing Officer, Senior Vice President
Mosse, David 37 2010 Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
Sutter, Kathryn 48 2008 Senior Vice President - Human Resources
Fuente, David 65 1993 Independent Director
Rossi, Walter 68 1993 Independent Director
Schorr, Lawrence 57 1985 Independent Director
Chirico, Emanuel 53 2003 Independent Director
Stone, Larry 59 2007 Independent Director
Fouse, Jacqualyn 49 2010 Independent Director


Address:
200 Industry Drive
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15275
U.S.A.
 
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