Academy Sports & Outdoors

Academy Sports + Outdoors is a large-format sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer serving customers across the southern and central United States. The company focuses on everyday value and broad assortments, with stores that bring together athletic apparel, footwear, team sports, outdoor gear, and lifestyle categories under one roof. Shoppers find hunting and fishing equipment, camping and boating gear, fitness and recreation products, fan merchandise, and casual and performance apparel from national brands alongside Academy’s own private labels. As of April 2024, Academy operates approximately 285 stores in 19 states, supported by a growing e-commerce business through academy.com and an omnichannel platform that links online and in-store shopping.

The business dates back to 1938, when founder Max Gochman opened a small tire shop in San Antonio, Texas. That shop gradually shifted into military surplus and then into sporting goods as customer needs changed and outdoor recreation grew in popularity. In the 1970s and 1980s, Max’s son, Arthur Gochman, focused the company squarely on sporting goods and began building out a regional chain across Texas, setting the foundation for the modern Academy store model. A key inflection point came in 2011, when private equity firm KKR acquired the company and helped fund upgrades to its supply chain and systems, as well as a faster pace of new store openings. Another major milestone followed in October 2020, when Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. completed its initial public offering on Nasdaq under the ticker ASO and became an independent, publicly traded company with a broad investor base.

Over the last five years, Academy has evolved from a regional Sporting Goods player into a larger platform retailer with a clearer national growth plan. The company has invested in new distribution capacity, refined its merchandising to balance everyday value with better-branded assortments, and expanded its digital capabilities so customers can research, order, and pick up in the channel that works best for them. While its roots are in Texas and the broader Gulf Coast, Academy has steadily pushed into additional parts of the Southeast and is now moving into adjacent markets in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. This expansion reflects a deliberate strategy to extend the brand’s family- and value-oriented positioning into new trade areas that share similar outdoor and team sports cultures.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, Academy typically operates as a large-format anchor or junior anchor that can fill or backfill big-box space in power centers and strong regional retail nodes. The company often targets second-generation boxes where it can secure attractive occupancy costs while bringing a refreshed, highly merchandised sporting and outdoor offer that drives steady traffic throughout the week and across seasons. As of April 2024, management has articulated a long-term potential of more than 500 U.S. stores, roughly double its current footprint, supported by a multi-year pipeline of new locations. Priority growth markets include Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, with additional opportunities in nearby Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic states.

Academy remains an independent public company, Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc., giving counterparties transparency into its financial performance and store portfolio. The combination of scale, a clear expansion posture, flexible use of existing big-box space, and a broad, needs-based product mix positions the brand as a durable, traffic-generating tenant for a range of open-air retail environments.