Dick's Sporting Goods is betting roughly $20 million per store that the future of physical retail is bigger, louder and more interactive — not smaller. Its "House of Sport" locations, averaging more than 100,000 square feet, pair climbing walls, outdoor tracks, ice rinks and batting cages with a less visible asset: an in-store media business, Dick's Media, that sells brand storytelling space inside the shopping journey. The company plans 35 House of Sport locations by the end of 2025 and as many as 100 by the end of fiscal 2027, even as it closed its last 17 Field & Stream stores.
The Rise of Experiential Retail: Dick's House of Sport
The first House of Sport opened in 2021, and the concept has since become the centerpiece of Dick's response to a retail environment in which more sales are shifting online. As CNBC reported in October 2025, the newest location debuted that month in Jersey City, New Jersey, joining a fleet that sits alongside the company's more than 850 stores across banners including Dick's, Golf Galaxy and Public Lands.
The scale is the point. Time, naming Dick's to its 2025 list of influential companies, noted that the 22 House of Sport locations then operating averaged more than 100,000 square feet — about twice the size of a regular Dick's store. The company opened seven of them in 2024 alone. Rather than shrinking footprints as many retailers have, Dick's is arguing that the largest sporting goods retailer in the U.S. can make brick-and-mortar decline look non-universal.
Pillar 1: The Experience Layer – Engaging Customers In-Store
What customers actually encounter is a place to play, not just to buy. Shoppers can try climbing gear on indoor walls, run on outdoor tracks, slide on ice rinks and take batting practice, according to Time's account of the format. The debut location near Rochester, New York, featured batting cages, a rock-climbing wall, an outdoor turf field and a running track, with a second location following in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The attached track-and-field space is used for open play, clinics and league space — and in some locations converts to an ice rink in winter. An analysis of Dick's strategy by the consultancy Umbrex describes these features as batting cages, climbing walls, turf fields, golf simulators and event space, and notes that management views them as both a traffic driver and a productivity lever. In other words, the experiences are not decoration; they are meant to pull people in and make the selling space work harder.
Pillar 2: The Media Layer – Dick's Media as a Storytelling Platform
The second pillar is quieter but central to the economics. Through Dick's Media, the company sells brands access to its shoppers at the moment of purchase. The platform's own marketing describes connecting advertisers with "the most powerful dataset in sports — 47M+ loyal DICK'S Sporting Goods athletes — at the most critical moments in their shopping journey."
Trade publication Beet.TV, covering the company's in-store media push in October 2025, reported that Dick's aims to make its stores a hub for storytelling that celebrates the athletic spirit, encouraging advertisers to align their messaging with that culture and broadening the definition of sports engagement. The extra shelf space at House of Sport also lets Dick's showcase more brand partners, old and new, deepening the premium partnerships the company has prioritized. The result is a store that earns revenue twice: once at the register, and once from brands paying to be part of the experience.
Dick's House of Sport: A Two-Layered Strategic Model
The strategy is easiest to understand as two interlocking layers — one facing customers, one facing brands — each with its own mechanism and intended business outcome. This model synthesizes company statements and media reporting; features vary by location but generally include the elements below.
| Strategic Pillar | Key Features / Mechanism | Business Goal / Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Experience Layer | Climbing walls, outdoor tracks, ice rinks, batting cages, turf fields, golf simulators, event space | Drive foot traffic, deepen engagement and improve store productivity — management treats the features as both traffic drivers and productivity levers |
| Media Layer (Dick's Media) | In-store storytelling that blends brand narratives into the shopping journey, leveraging a dataset of 47M+ athletes across digital and physical ecosystems | Create new revenue streams by letting brands connect with consumers inside the retail environment, enhancing partner visibility and engagement |
| Strategic Trade-offs | Roughly $20 million in net capital expenditure per store, per Dick's CFO; most locations sit in malls | High cost exposure and dependence on mall traffic, with scalability challenges that have tripped up other experiential concepts |
| Portfolio Shift | Closure of all 17 Field & Stream stores, focused on hunting, fishing and camping gear, reported in March 2023 | Concentrate capital on the experiential format rather than niche chains |
Read together, the layers explain why Dick's tolerates the cost: the experiences generate the audience, and the media platform monetizes it. A climbing wall with no media business is an expense; a climbing wall wrapped in paid brand storytelling is a revenue engine.
Strategic Goals and Expansion Plans
The expansion timeline is explicit. Dick's plans 35 House of Sport stores by the end of 2025 and up to 100 by the end of fiscal 2027, according to CNBC's reporting on the company's statements. That target sits within a broader growth strategy that includes repositioning parts of the legacy fleet into larger, more service-heavy formats and rolling out newer layouts to improve traffic flow in key categories such as footwear, athletic apparel and team sports.
The company has also pursued growth through acquisition, including Foot Locker, though the House of Sport buildout is the clearest expression of its physical-retail thesis: that scale and experience, executed together, can justify a bigger box when most of the industry is shrinking.
Trade-offs and Risks of a High-Stakes Strategy
The risks are equally explicit. Dick's has said each House of Sport requires around $20 million in net capital expenditures — a significant outlay for a physical retailer while sales continue shifting online. Most locations are in malls, which are facing difficulties with shopper traffic, so the concept's success is partly hostage to a channel already under pressure.
Recent retail history offers cautionary parallels. CNBC's analysis pointed to the re-imagined Toys R Us after bankruptcy, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys as examples where compelling experiential retail did not translate into financial success and proved difficult to scale, and noted that Nike has had mixed success with its large flagship experiential concepts. Dick's is making the opposite bet from those who retreated — but it is making it with the same industry headwinds in view.
Portfolio Shift: Prioritizing Experience Over Niche Formats
The House of Sport push has come with subtraction. As Retail Dive reported in March 2023, Dick's closed its last 17 Field & Stream stores — the hunting, fishing and camping chain — even as it saw potential for 100 of the experiential, sports-oriented locations over the following five years. The closure signaled that capital would flow toward broad, community-oriented sports experiences rather than niche outdoor formats.
That trade is the strategy in miniature: fewer concepts, bigger stages. Dick's is consolidating its portfolio around formats where the experience layer and the media layer can reinforce each other, and walking away from chains that could not host either.
Navigating the Future of Retail: Dick's Strategic Bet
Dick's Sporting Goods is making a high-stakes strategic bet on experiential retail through its 'House of Sport' concept, aiming to redefine the in-store shopping experience and create new revenue streams through its media platform. The bet is coherent but unproven at full scale: roughly $20 million per store, mall-dependent traffic, and a media business whose brand-partnership economics are still emerging.
Monitor the number of new 'House of Sport' store openings relative to the stated goal of 100 by 2027, and any public announcements regarding 'Dick's Media' brand partnerships or revenue growth. Those two indicators — store count against the 2027 target, and disclosed media partnerships — will show whether the two-layer model is compounding or whether House of Sport joins the list of experiential concepts that dazzled customers without rewarding investors.
Sources
- As many retailers shrink their footprints, Dick's Sporting Goods goes big — CNBC
- DICK'S Media — Dicks Media
- Retaildive
- TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2025: Dick's Sporting Goods
- DICK'S Sporting Goods Strategy and Business Model — Independent Management Consultants
- Connecting Commerce to Storytelling: How Dick’s Sporting Goods Is Redefining In-Store Media – Beet.TV
