Dick’s Sporting Goods on Monday began a series of layoffs at its Foot Locker operation, sources said.
The layoffs weren’t unexpected — it was just a question of when.
Matt Powell, advisor at Spurwink River, told Footwear News: “In most mergers and acquisitions, there are redundancies, especially back of house in departments like HR and sourcing. I had been expecting some reductions,” he said, adding that he’s heard the integration of Foot Locker by Dick’s Sporting Goods has “gone better than expected.”
Many at Foot Locker have been working at locations spread out across the country. At one point, Foot Locker was planning on relocating its global headquarters to St. Petersburg, Fla., but that got quashed by Dick’s in Novermber. Some workers were told starting Monday to “return to office” in New York, where Foot Locker is headquartered prior to the Dick’s acquisition, or Florida for Champs Sports. Others were asked to relocate. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people would be impacted.
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FN reached out to a spokeswoman at Dick’s for comment regarding the layoffs and relocation requests, but did not get a response by press time.
Dick’s completed its $2.5 billion acquisition of Foot Locker this past September. Since the deal was announced, there was speculation that Foot Locker stores would close, as well as questions about the future for Champs Sports, WSS and Atmos.
When Dick’s posted third quarter earnings results in November, executive chairman Edward Stack said that change was afoot at Foot Locker. He said decisive actions were being taken to “clean out the garage,” such as “clearing unproductive inventory, closing underperforming stores and laying the foundation for a fresh start in 2026.”
Those moves coupled with Dick’s operational expertise and strong vendor relationships would position the Foot Locker business “for profitable growth,” Stack said. What he did not say was how many stores would close.
When Dick’s hosted it fourth quarter conference call on March 12, Stack said he saw long-term opportunity for growth of the Foot Locker banner and added that the inventory cleanup was “now essentially complete.” He also said the banner is set up to “play offense and deliver the inflection point we expect to see in this business starting with back-to-school.” But he did note that the number of stores to be closed is “much smaller” than initially projected. Some of the stores will feature learnings from an 11-store pilot program called “Fast Break.”
Dick’s is expecting Foot Locker to deliver growth and comp sales of between 1 percent and 3 percent, and operating income in the range of $100 million to $150 million in 2026.