管理層發言
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the DICK'S Sporting Goods Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Operator provided instructions. I will now hand the conference over to Nate Gilch, VP of Investor Relations. Nate, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. On today's call will be Ed Stack, our Executive Chairman; Lauren Hobart, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Navdeep Gupta, our Chief Financial Officer. A playback of today's call will be archived on our Investor Relations website located at investors.dicks.com for approximately 12 months. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements in our earnings release and risk factor discussions in our filings with the SEC, including our last annual report on Form 10-K as well as cautionary statements made during this call. We assume no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements or information.
Please refer to our Investor Relations website to find the reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures referenced in today's call. And finally, a couple of admin items. First, a quick reminder on our comparable sales reporting. Foot Locker will be included in our quarterly comp calculations beginning in Q4 of 2026, which will mark the start of their 14th full month of operations post acquisition. And finally, for future scheduling purposes, we are tentatively planning to publish our second quarter 2026 earnings results on August 25, 2026. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Ed.
Thanks, Nate. Good morning, everyone. We delivered a very strong first quarter, and I want to thank our more than 100,000 teammates around the globe for their commitment and execution. Sport is one of the hottest categories in the country today. We're in the middle of a real sports moment and the intersection of sporting culture has never been stronger. You see it everywhere. From rising valuations of professional sports teams, to the level of investment from streaming platforms and networks, and the strong demand from advertisers to be a part of live sports. Looking ahead, with major global events like the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A., we're entering one of the most exciting multiyear periods for sport in this country's history, making it an incredibly powerful and compelling platform for consumer engagement today. This environment plays directly to our strengths and DICK'S is leading from the front across our stores, our digital capabilities and our now expanded global reach.
We are connecting with athletes in more ways and with more relevance than at any point in our history. What sets us apart is our ability to create and maintain that connection across performance, lifestyle and culture throughout the DICK'S ecosystem. House of Sport and Field House are reshaping what retail can be and redefining how brands come to life. GameChanger keeps us deeply embedded in youth sports, unlocking new levels of opportunity and partnership. Golf Galaxy reinforces our leadership in a category with strong participation and rising cultural relevance. And with Foot Locker, we reach a different consumer connected deeply with sneaker culture, basketball and lifestyle and extend our influence even further. That's why the best and most exciting sports brands in the world want to partner with us, not just to sell product, but to launch ideas, tell stories and scale concepts globally during the most important moments in sports.
And that's why engagement with us continues to grow. We're investing in our business from a position of strength. We're playing offense for the long term, and it's widening the gap between us and the rest of the industry. Our vision is to build the best sports company in the world and we're just getting started. Our leadership showed up clearly with an exceptionally strong performance in our DICK'S business this quarter with comps of 6%. Our team executed at a very high level, and we're all proud of their contributions. Now turning to Foot Locker. We remain highly focused on the transformational opportunity ahead and on delivering an inflection point in sales and profitability, starting with back-to-school. Our excitement and confidence continue to build as we execute our plan and in Q1, we saw encouraging proof points. For the global Foot Locker business, we delivered slightly positive comps and operating income with merchandise margin improvement.
This marks the first quarter of positive comps for the Foot Locker business since Q4 of 2024. North America performed even better with a 1.4% comp growth and within this, the U.S. Foot Locker banner comped up 6.4%. The Foot Locker banner is our largest and most critical part of the Foot Locker business, so it's where we focused first and the results we're seeing reinforce our turnaround approach. We have a clear plan, and it's working. We're raising the low end of our full year comp sales expectations for the Foot Locker business. We now expect comp sales growth of 1.5% to 3%, up from 1% to 3% previously. A major driver of this strong execution is our store teammates. Our Stripers and Blue Shirts are energized by the renewed momentum and investment in our stores. They are deeply embedded in their communities. They're the closest to the consumer because they are the consumer. Wearing the stripes in their own neighborhoods is a badge of honor and that authenticity shows up every day in how they tell the sneaker story.
Our Fast Break stores are performing exceptionally well, reinforcing our conviction in this capital-light remodel initiative. During the first quarter, we expanded Fast Break by approximately 90 stores, bringing the total to approximately 100 stores across that expanded footprint. Our Fast Break stores delivered double-digit comps in Q1 and meaningful merchandise margin improvement. By back-to-school, we plan to have approximately 250 Fast Break stores across Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker and Champs globally with further expansion ahead of the holiday season. Our Fast Break initiative is built on retail fundamentals: a more focused shoe wall, improved storytelling and the reintroduction of apparel with curated and complementary offerings. These updates are fast to implement, typically completed in a few days and require limited capital. At its core, it's retail 101. And when you execute it with discipline, it works.
Looking across the entire Foot Locker business, we are very excited about our assortment heading into back-to-school. This marks the first season where our team had full control over the buys, and we feel great about the product that will be in the stores. This will be supported by a bold brand relaunch designed to bring consumers back to the Foot Locker brand in a meaningful way. Behind the scenes, we are strengthening the fundamentals of the Foot Locker business. With improvements in our supply chain, we are moving product faster and getting into the right stores. We're applying greater discipline around pricing and using real-time data to drive better decisions and sharper execution. Finally, our brand partners remain fully engaged. They want a strong, growing Foot Locker, and they are leaning in with us as their largest global partner. In closing, the early results we're seeing reinforce our conviction in both the opportunity and our approach.
We have the right plan, the right team, and the right partnerships in place to unlock the full potential of the Foot Locker business. With that, Lauren will walk you through the continued momentum across the DICK'S business. Lauren, I'll turn it over to you.
Thank you, Ed, and good morning, everyone. Building on Ed's comments, it's exciting to see sport driving sustained energy and engagement across the consumer landscape. I am proud of how our team has turned that athlete demand into a very strong quarter of execution for the company. At DICK'S, the team continues to excel at bringing our four strategic pillars to life: a compelling omnichannel athlete experience, a differentiated on-trend product assortment, deep engagement with the DICK'S brand and the strength of our teammates and culture. In Q1, we delivered comp sales growth of 6% in the DICK'S business with growth in average ticket and transactions. These strong comps were on top of a 4.5% increase last year and a 5.3% increase in 2024 as we continued to gain market share. One thing that remains notable is the consistency in athlete behavior. We saw more athletes purchase from us more frequently and they spend more each trip compared to the prior year.
We continue to see a healthy consumer across income demographics with no signs of trading down alongside particularly strong engagement from our younger athletes. Our consumer is really responding to newness and innovation, which is showing up throughout the DICK'S business with broad-based growth across footwear, apparel and hardlines. Given our continued confidence in the DICK'S business, we are raising the low end of our expectations for comparable sales and now expect growth of 2.5% to 4%, up from 2% to 4% previously. At the high end of our expectations for the DICK'S business, we now expect to drive approximately 30 basis points of operating margin expansion on a non-GAAP basis. At the consolidated company level, we continue to expect full year non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $13.50 to $14.50. This continued strength reflects the progress we're making across our strategic priorities.
First, we continue to drive growth in our key categories, supported by national brand partners, new and emerging brands and our own vertical brands. One of our biggest advantages is the depth of our brand relationships. We are a critical partner to the most important brands in our industry, and that shows up in the access, allocation and marketing support we receive. Our partnerships span leading global brands like Nike, Adidas and Fanatics as well as fast-growing emerging brands such as Vuori and Gymshark. These relationships are deeply collaborative and they continue to bring the best product and innovation to our athletes. Second, we're continuing to reposition and elevate our real estate and store portfolio through House of Sport and Field House. These concepts are redefining the athlete experience in physical retail and strengthening how our brand partners show up in our stores. In Q1, we opened one House of Sport location and two Field House locations, and our plans are on track to open approximately 13 and 20 more, respectively, for this year.
We also continue to see extremely strong interest from landlords, giving us access to some truly iconic retail locations, including Palm Beach Gardens, Cerritos and Tysons Corner. Given these new opportunities, we can be selective in the locations we choose which will drive greater long-term shareholder value. Third, we are continuing to enhance how we serve athletes seamlessly across channels. In our stores, we're evolving the experience with a greater focus on elevated service and selling rooted in deep sport and product expertise. At the same time, we are investing in our digital experience, enhancing our site and our app. We recently announced the upcoming summer launch of Coach IDX, our AI-powered digital agent, representing a significant step forward in how we innovate for the athlete. Coach extends the expertise of our teammates into a personalized conversational experience, helping athletes make more confident decisions across product, training and services.
We also remain very excited about our DICK'S Media Network, a high-growth asset that allows our partners to reach athletes in very relevant ways across our House of Sport locations and digital channels. And we're thrilled to have recently opened our Fort Worth distribution center, enhancing our ability to serve athletes in the fast-growing Texas market and surrounding areas. Finally, we continue to scale GameChanger as a key driver of engagement and innovation within the DICK'S ecosystem. Earlier this year, GameChanger launched the most comprehensive product update in its history, introducing 10 AI-powered live streaming features, automated game highlight reels and a new suite of AI-powered coaching tools designed to help coaches coach smarter. The impact has been immediate and measurable. In Q1, approximately 50% of all games covered on the platform were streamed live, a record for the business.
At scale, the reach is significant. In the last month alone, more games were streamed on GameChanger than have been played in the entire history of Major League Baseball. In closing, the consistency that we're seeing across the DICK'S business validates our strategies and the discipline of our execution. We are operating from a position of strength, and we remain confident in our ability to drive sustained growth while investing for the future. With that, I'll turn it over to Navdeep to share more detail on our financial results and our 2026 outlook. Navdeep, over to you.
Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with a brief review of our first quarter results. Consolidated net sales increased 62.7% to $5.16 billion, driven by a $1.79 billion contribution from the Foot Locker business and a 6% comp increase for the DICK'S business as we continue to gain market share. DICK'S business comp reflects a 5.5% increase in average ticket and a 0.5% increase in transactions with a broad-based strength across footwear, apparel and hardlines. On a 2-year and a 3-year basis, DICK'S business comps increased 10.5% and 15.8%, respectively. Pro forma comps for the Foot Locker business accelerated, increasing 0.6% for the quarter, driven by a 1.4% increase in North America. Notably, as Ed highlighted, the U.S. Foot Locker banner delivered a 6.4% comp growth reflecting strong underlying performance as we focus on driving improvements in this important part of the Foot Locker business.
From a margin perspective, consolidated non-GAAP gross profit was $1.73 billion or 33.42% of net sales, down 328 basis points from last year. The year-over-year decline was primarily driven by mix impact from the Foot Locker business. Turning to our expenses. On a non-GAAP basis, consolidated SG&A expenses increased 68.4% or $541 million to $1.33 billion, and deleveraged 88 basis points compared to last year's non-GAAP results. $480 million of this consolidated increase was driven by the Foot Locker business. As expected, for the DICK'S business, SG&A deleveraged 31 basis points, driven by investments digitally and in-store. Consolidated non-GAAP operating income was $378.4 million or 7.33% of net sales compared to $360.4 million or 11.35% of net sales last year. For the DICK'S business, operating income was $361 million or 10.69% of net sales. And for the Foot Locker business, we delivered operating income of $17.5 million or 0.98% of net sales.
Moving down the P&L. Consolidated non-GAAP income tax expense was $106.2 million or a rate of 28.8%. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was shaped by a mix of our earnings in foreign jurisdictions, including the effect of purchase accounting adjustments, particularly in Europe, where losses do not currently generate a tax benefit due to valuation allowances. In total, we delivered consolidated non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $2.90 for the quarter, which includes the dilutive impact of the 9.6 million shares issued in connection with the Foot Locker acquisition. This compares to our non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $3.37 last year. On a GAAP basis, our earnings per diluted share were $3.54. This includes $174 million of pretax litigation and other settlements partially offset by $97 million of pretax Foot Locker acquisition-related costs. For additional details, you can refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation tables of our press release that we issued this morning.
Now looking to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $1 billion of cash and cash equivalents and no borrowings on our $2 billion unsecured credit facility. Inventory was $5.42 billion, reflecting the addition of the Foot Locker business, while the DICK'S business inventory was up just 3%. Importantly, we believe our inventory remains well positioned to support our growth plans across both DICK'S and Foot Locker businesses. Turning to capital allocation. Net capital expenditures were $289 million, and we paid $114 million in quarterly dividends. We also repurchased 719,000 shares of our stock for $141 million at an average price of $196.38. Before I move to our outlook, I would like to provide a brief update on the expectations surrounding the Foot Locker acquisition. First, as part of a cleanout of the garage actions and broader merger and integration work, we previously estimated and continue to expect total pretax charges of between $500 million and $750 million.
During 2025, we recognized $390 million of these charges. The remaining pretax charges will be incurred over 2026 and the medium term as we complete this work. We now expect approximately $200 million of these remaining charges in 2026 compared to our original expectation of $150 million. These charges have been excluded from today's non-GAAP EPS outlook. Second, we remain confident in achieving previously announced $100 million to $125 million of cost synergies over the medium term primarily from procurement and direct sourcing efficiencies. A portion of these synergy benefits are expected in 2026, which have been reflected in our outlook. Now moving to our outlook for full year 2026. Our guidance continues to reflect the strength of the DICK'S business and the turnaround efforts underway at Foot Locker, all within the context of the dynamic geopolitical and macroeconomic environment. Based on our confidence in DICK'S and Foot Locker, we are raising the low end of our comp sales guidance for both businesses.
Beginning with the DICK'S business, we now expect full year comp sales growth in the range of 2.5% to 4% compared to our prior growth expectation of 2% to 4%. From a pacing standpoint, we continue to expect higher comps in the first half, driven in large part by the timing of the World Cup. We continue to expect preopening expenses to be approximately $90 million for the full year for the DICK'S business. From an operating margin, we now expect the high end of our expectation for the DICK'S business to be approximately 11.4%, which is above our prior expectation of approximately 11.2%. From a pacing standpoint, we continue to expect operating margins for the DICK'S business to decline in the first half and expand in the second half due to the timing of the planned investments and synergy savings. The most significant pressure is expected in Q2, driven primarily by the timing of planned SG&A investments, including marketing tied to the World Cup, and the timing of preopening expenses to support a higher number of House of Sport openings in this year's second quarter compared to last year.
Now turning to the Foot Locker business. We now expect full year pro forma comp sales growth in the range of 1.5% to 3% compared to our prior growth expectation of 1% to 3%. We now expect operating income for the Foot Locker business to be in the range of $110 million to $150 million compared to our prior expectation of $100 million to $150 million. From a pacing standpoint, we continue to expect comp sales and operating income performance to be back half weighted. At the consolidated company level, we continue to expect full year non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $13.50 to $14.50. Our earnings guidance is now based on approximately 90.5 million average diluted shares outstanding, which includes the dilutive impact of 9.6 million shares issued in connection with the Foot Locker acquisition. We now anticipate a consolidated company effective tax rate of approximately 27% for the full year.
This is approximately 150 basis points higher than our original expectation as the dynamics we saw in Q1 are expected to persist, albeit to a lesser degree. This increase in tax rate unfavorably impacts our non-GAAP EPS guidance by approximately $0.25 for the full year and is included in our updated outlook. Finally, from a capital allocation standpoint, investing in our business to grow our leadership position and drive profitable organic growth across both DICK'S and Foot Locker business remains our top priority. We now expect net capital expenditures of approximately $1.4 billion for the full year, split roughly 70-30 across DICK'S and Foot Locker businesses. For the DICK'S business, our investment will be focused on store growth, relocations and improvement in our existing stores as well as ongoing investments in technology and supply chain. For the Foot Locker business, our investments will be focused on reenergizing our store fleet, including our Fast Break initiative.
In closing, we are pleased with the strength in the DICK'S business and confident in the path to improved performance at the Foot Locker business. This concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you for your interest in DICK'S Sporting Goods. Operator, you may now open the line for questions.
分析師問答
Operator instructions were provided. Our first question comes from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.
Good morning, everyone, good quarter. So I know we're going to spend some time on Foot Locker this morning, but I want to start with the DICK'S business. A 6% comp is a very strong start to the year. Can you talk about the key drivers of the performance? How much reflects underlying momentum versus any onetime benefits in the quarter? And then how you're thinking about comps from here?
Thanks, Simeon. Yes, we are really proud of the quarter and the results we just put out. The DICK'S comp increased 6%. This was definitely not the result of a onetime factor. We saw broad-based strength across the entire portfolio. We saw strength in footwear and apparel, and hardlines. Within hardlines, feeling really terrific about team sports and licensed and trading cards and golf. There was tremendous growth across the whole portfolio. And really, this is due to the fact that our long-term strategies are working. We've been leaning into differentiated products, elevated product; we're finding that consumers are resonating with newness and technical innovation. At the same time, we've repositioned our portfolio with House of Sport and Field House, and the best expressions of those concepts are cascading through our entire business. Our entire team is completely focused on elevating the athlete experience in our stores and through our digital ecosystem, and that is a big factor in our results.
The other thing I would point to is, as Ed mentioned in his prepared remarks, sport is one of the hottest categories in the country today, and we sit right at the intersection of sport and culture. We're feeling that excitement in North America going into the World Cup. It's going to continue for many years going into LA '28 and we happen to just be in a fantastic lane. For many quarters now, we have seen our consumer hold up really well. We haven't seen trade down again this quarter. We didn't see trade down from best to better or better to good. We saw growth again this quarter across all income demographics and we added 1.5 million new athletes to our database. So really pleased with the quarter that we just had and the momentum that signals in our business.
And my follow-up is on profit and flow-through. So the 6% comps, we would have expected a little stronger flow through. For us, strong comps typically means more full-price selling, so good for gross and then nice SG&A leverage. So can you talk about what's unique either to Q1? It may be unique to 2026, given World Cup and the timing of House of Sport. And is it more or less a whole year where we don't get what this operating leverage of the business throws off and we'll see more strength as we go into next year?
Okay, Simeon, it's a really good question. I'm glad you asked it. Our business is performing exactly as we had expected it to and as we guided. So in the first half, we said we were going to have higher comps than the second half. And we also were making significant investments in our business, which we did. We invested in World Cup, and we'll continue to do that in Q2. So for the first half, we did expect stronger comps and lower flow-through. But when you look at the full year guidance, we just took the high end of our guidance up 20 basis points. So we guided to 10 and we're now guiding to 30 basis points of improvement at the high end of the range, 11.4%. We're absolutely expecting leverage for the full year. Just as we've been planning, it's going to come in the second half, and that's just due to the timing of investments. So again, we feel terrific about the business and really good about the leverage for this year and the operating profit will flow through.
Our next question comes from the line of Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer.
So my first question, I do want to focus on Foot Locker. So in your commentary and lately, you've expressed a lot of confidence in the turnaround that we saw some encouraging signs here in the first quarter, particularly in the United States. So can you just kind of maybe talk more about where the turnaround is today? A focus again on the progress you're seeing with the Fast Break refresh and just your overall positioning and health of that inventory within the Foot Locker channel.
Sure, Brian. We're right on schedule with what we plan to do with Foot Locker. Through last year, we've cleaned out the garage from an inventory standpoint. So our inventory is in terrific shape. We've repaired vendor relationships with key brands that had been somewhat disenchanted with Foot Locker. We've repaired those vendor relationships, and they're now fully supportive of Foot Locker and really want Foot Locker to be a stable, growing retailer as part of their portfolio. So we've repaired those relationships. We've rebuilt the management teams, and we've remerchandised the stores with what we're doing with Fast Break. From a Fast Break standpoint, in those early stores that we reconceptualized what the wall would look like — as you've heard me say before, the Foot Locker footwear wall was essentially a run-on display. It was filled with a bunch of shoes and nothing was prioritized.
What we did is we took many shoes off the wall, we reduced roughly 30% of the SKU choices and focused on key styles, key colors and key stories that when the consumer came in, they knew what was important. In those Fast Break stores, as we've talked about, they have done extremely well; they comped double digits in the first quarter. So we're really excited about that. As I said, the inventory is in good shape. We've augmented some of the assortment in the first quarter that helped the business. And remember, we've always said that the inflection point here was going to begin in back-to-school which is the first time that the team bought the entire assortment. So we feel that inflection point in back-to-school is going to happen. We will have bought the product, and that's the first time we'll be back marketing and doing the relaunch of the Foot Locker brand and a big marketing effort, which we are really excited about.
And as you said, we did focus our attention on the biggest part of the business, which is the U.S. Foot Locker locations. Those stores comped over 6% in the first quarter. So our plan — we're right on schedule with our plan. Our plan is working, and we continue to be really excited about the Foot Locker business going forward.
I appreciate that. As a follow-up, I want to ask about the Fast Break. I've spent time looking at the refreshed Foot Locker stores, the Fast Break locations, and I want to make sure I understand. They do look much cleaner and better organized, but there is no new product; the merchandise in those stores is still legacy product and you haven't introduced new lines. So are those sales being driven solely by presenting the existing product in a cleaner, better organized way?
For right now, yes. When you've been into the Fast Break stores, you've seen, although it's not perfect yet, an increase in the apparel business and the apparel presentation that we've got there. Foot Locker previously significantly scaled back the apparel business. So we brought apparel back in, and we've done the best we could cobbling together assortments because we didn't buy this assortment originally. We did talk to brands, and they gave us some additional allocation of product so we'd be in better stock. But as I've said, the first time that we were able to buy the product and build that assortment is for the back-to-school season, and that's where you'll see that inflection point.
Our next question comes from the line of Katharine McShane with Goldman Sachs.
It looks like your capital expenditure outlook came down a little bit for fiscal year '26. And we wondered if you could explain what the change was there? Is there any breakdown you can give Foot Locker and DICK'S and is there a way to think about CapEx from the Fast Break investment, but also by banner for Foot Locker?
This is Navdeep. Two-part question there. Let me start with the outlook that we have provided for the CapEx, we actually gave a little bit of a detailed outlook between the banners. Right now, we expect net CapEx for the DICK'S banner to be about $1 billion for 2026 and about $400 million for Foot Locker. As you can imagine, a majority of the $400 million of capital investment in Foot Locker will be associated with the investments that we are making in our stores, including the Fast Break stores. But as Ed called out, the Fast Break stores are capital-light, yet when you think about the magnitude of investments in terms of the number of stores we'll be investing in, that is a significant portion of the CapEx investment for 2026. In terms of where the efficiencies came from — the decrease in our CapEx outlook by about $100 million came predominantly in the DICK'S business. As part of what Lauren talked about, like the confidence that we have on our operating margin expansion on a full year basis, the team has been working on productivity initiatives for the last several years, and what you're seeing is the manifestation of that work showing up both in the operating margin leverage expectation on the full year as well as the capital efficiency of $100 million of reduction in CapEx outlook for DICK'S for the full year.
Okay. And just as a follow-up question with the strength in the Foot Locker U.S. business, can you maybe talk through what you're seeing with the Foot Locker Europe stores currently?
Yes. The European business is, as we expected, a little bit behind where the U.S. business is. We are in the process of implementing the Fast Break strategy into Europe. We've got a couple of stores done there and the results are promising. We're making some other changes there from a management standpoint. But all in all, the European business is about where we anticipated it to be, but it's definitely a bit behind the U.S. business, and we expect that to be that way through the end of the year. We do expect that we'll catch up.
Our next question comes from the line of Adrienne Yih with Barclays.
Ed and Lauren, I guess my question starts with what macro backdrop do you envision for the rest of the year and the guidance? And then secondarily, Lauren, I really liked your comment on the intersection of sport and culture, right? Sport and lifestyle and you have the two brands to go after both of those. So can you talk about level of innovation, competition and maybe focus on some of the footwear fashion trends, so performance versus lifestyle versus maybe nonathletic, just the ebbs and flows at subsector trends?
Great. Thanks, Adrienne. Regarding the macro, we've balanced all of the confidence that we have in our business and the momentum that I talked about with an appropriate level of caution about the macroeconomic environment and geopolitical environment, and that is why we've left the top end of our comp range the same for both DICK'S and Foot Locker. But overall, our strategies are working. The things that we can control are working, and we're feeling really good about them. In terms of the intersection of sports and culture, we see a lot of innovation within footwear in particular. We're really pleased with things like performance running, which is doing very well; even basketball, women's basketball is doing very well. Some of the lifestyle footwear is doing very well, in particular retro styles, and some of the other brands are doing terrific in training and recovery. So footwear is a very strong business for us. We drove growth in the past quarter and we'll continue to drive growth into the future, and we're feeling very bullish.
Great. And my follow-up, Ed, you mentioned the brand relationships carrying over that strength to Foot Locker. Can you give us specific examples of what that means? Is it faster turns, access to exclusive product, really what are the muscles that you're porting over from DICK'S to Foot Locker?
Sure. There are a number of things. Foot Locker will now have a different allocation of product that it didn't have before — access to certain products it didn't have before. And the confidence of these brands that Foot Locker is a viable go-forward business that can help them grow is restored. A number of brands had lost confidence in Foot Locker's ability to present and protect their product. With the relationship between DICK'S and Foot Locker, these brand relationships have been repaired. What we've got from an allocation standpoint and from an exclusive standpoint on styles and colors going forward, plus stories that we'll be able to tell around different athletes and aspects of what's going on in sport or sneaker culture, is very different. You'll see a lot of that start to roll out to an even greater degree in Q1 of next year as we're beginning to build those assortments now. It's an entirely different relationship with the brands, and if you talk to the group in Foot Locker — the buyers, the Stripers, et cetera — they'll see a very different brand relationship going forward.
Our next question comes from the line of Bob Derbal with BTIG.
I was wondering if you could expand a bit more on the core DICK'S Sporting Goods segment, the gross margin performance and the decline that we saw this quarter.
On the DICK'S gross margin line, it was down about 35 basis points year-over-year. Two big drivers, both in line with our expectation. The first is a headwind we saw in supply chain expenses. One, higher fuel cost was a headwind on a year-over-year basis. We also opened our sixth distribution center in Q1. It was at the tail end of Q1. We're really excited to have that new infrastructure available to serve the market in a much more efficient way as well as serve our stores; however, that created a little bit of a headwind on a year-over-year basis when you open fixed infrastructure. Outside of that, we saw a little bit of a mix headwind driven by the growth in the trading card business. It brings a new customer and allows us to take the market around collectibles, but that does come with a slightly lower gross margin and that was a mix impact that you saw. I'll add that if you look at our outlook that we have shared for the full year, we expect our gross margin to expand now with the updated outlook that we have provided.
Great. And then if I could just ask one more question. On the basketball business, can you talk about maybe what you're seeing at the DICK'S segment versus what you're seeing at the Foot Locker stores in basketball?
Sure. The basketball business is coming back. It had slowed down a bit, but it's coming back in a big way and is being driven by strong interest in women's basketball as well as youth and young adult categories. Boys and girls, young men and women are buying that product. We're excited about it in the DICK'S business and also excited about it in the Foot Locker business. So basketball is going to be quite good and we're pretty excited about it across both banners.
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser with UBS.
On the outlook for the DICK'S core business, you mentioned that you expect the gross margin to improve over the course of the year. Presumably, collectibles will remain a source of pressure. So what do you expect outside of the supply chain drag becoming less of an impact? What do you expect the offset will be from the collectible pressure and any other drivers that you're considering over the course of the next few quarters?
There are puts and takes with the gross margin outlook. As you called out, fuel pressure we have contemplated could persist into the near future. We have the fixed cost impact from opening the sixth distribution center as well as occupancy headwinds as we continue to invest in repositioning our portfolio. The mix headwind from trading cards is also contemplated. However, the offset impact has continued to be consistent with what has been driving our gross margin expansion. First is access and allocation with brand partners, which Ed talked about. That continues to be a key driver of our confidence in merch margin expansion. The work our pricing team is doing and the work our vertical brand teams are doing is significant. Vertical brands carry 700 to 900 basis points of higher gross margin rate on average. As we penetrate more there, those brands are doing fantastic for us. Outside of that, our DICK'S Media Network, which is continuing to grow strongly, and the growth we are seeing in GameChanger will be drivers that offset some of the headwinds I mentioned.
And Michael, if I can just add to that. The collectibles business and the trading card business are such exciting incremental opportunities. While they do have a lower margin than our overall mix, they bring incremental gross margin dollars, bringing people in more frequently, appealing to a younger audience, totally incremental from the rest of our store and driving trips. So we're thrilled about that business. The math will work so that we can grow the gross margin for the full year.
Lauren, obviously, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you if you wanted to quantify the contribution from collectibles and trading cards in the first quarter, but I assume...
We do not and probably won't.
Okay. And my follow-up question is on the economics of the House of Sport locations. This is now more in focus over time as you add more of these flagship stores. How have the economics changed? Are you continuing to see the same-store sales growth in the second, third and fourth year of these locations, consistent with the overall chain average? And do you think the return on investment, both tangible and maybe intangible because you do get some intangible benefits from key stakeholders like landlords and vendors, will the tangible return be sustained as you scale this concept to what could be 75 or more locations over time?
Great question. House of Sport delivers both tangible and intangible benefits. From a financial standpoint, we're thrilled with the results; we do see comp store growth in years three and four. They open fully and then continue to grow and are driving strong sales, profitability and ROI. The intangibles are important: consumers spend more time in these stores and spend significantly more per visit than an average athlete, and our national brand partners see this as an incredible on-ramp for new and emerging brands. You've heard us say we added Vuori and Gymshark; that's been enabled by House of Sport where brands can be presented head-to-toe and tell a cohesive story. Landlords appreciate the traffic these locations drive; each time we open a House of Sport we often see a meaningful impact in the center or mall, revitalizing areas of real estate and giving us access to bigger, better, more premium locations. The Field House concept is a smaller version of House of Sport with many of the same elements, and it also delivers strong returns. Overall, House of Sport is translating benefits across the portfolio.
I'll build on what Lauren said. Another opportunity we're investing in within House of Sport is the DICK'S Media Network. The way we can bring a brand alive through the DICK'S Media Network and have that curated experience and engagement is something brands are very excited about. Our digital and marketing teams have done a strong job creating interactions that are measurable and quantifiable so we can report metrics back to the brands, and that's resonating with them.
Our next question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi.
Lauren, I think you said you didn't see a trade down between good, better and best. Can you talk about the performance of those three tiers in terms of what is driving the comp from each of those different segments and how each of your customer segments are holding up? And second, curious to get your updated thoughts on putting more leverage on the balance sheet, progressing more aggressively with share repurchase?
I'll start with the first question. I did say we did not see trade down between good, better and best. We serve different occasions and different athletes across our portfolio. We have everything from opening price points in our DSG brand which offers attractive pricing but high function and fashion, all the way up to technical apparel and performance equipment. Every one of those categories is doing well and they each play a role in a balanced portfolio, responding to different consumer groups, and that's contributing to the comp in each of those segments. I'll turn it to Navdeep to talk about the balance sheet.
Paul, we continue to have a very strong balance sheet. As you saw in Q1, we bought $140 million of our shares already in Q1 and still finished the quarter with $1 billion of cash on the balance sheet. So we have plenty of flexibility. From a share repurchase perspective, we'll continue to be opportunistic and that's the approach we have taken and will continue to take through the balance of this year.
Just one quick follow-up. The private label business, you mentioned vertical brands. How did private label generally perform versus the rest of the chain?
We're thrilled with our vertical brand business. DSG, CALIA and First Ascent are doing very well. Vertical brands are performing strongly versus the rest of the chain and continue to expand gross margin. On average, a vertical brand carries 700 to 900 basis points higher gross margin than the average DICK'S margin. The team is doing a fantastic job continuing to leverage that. Vertical brands are a key mix driver and fill white space opportunities in the portfolio, and we're thrilled with how they're doing.
Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Horvers with JPMorgan.
So my first question is, you've been very optimistic about the DICK'S business, but we're also coming off a period where there was plenty of tax stimulus that affected all levels of the consumer income spectrum. So I was curious if you thought the first quarter benefited from tax stimulus such that the 2-, 3-year trend that you referenced is not sustainable as we look forward outside of just being prudent?
I would say we were very happy with the overall performance across both banners, not just DICK'S. If you look at the outlook we provided, it indicates confidence in our core strategies, balanced against macro and geopolitical uncertainty. I wouldn't call out any significant benefit from stimulus checks in Q1. There are puts and takes: higher gas prices and other economic conditions were present, and despite that we delivered a really strong result across all banners.
Understood. And then on the Foot Locker side of the business, a two-part question. Can you talk about same-store sales from an AUR and transaction perspective? One would think that it was basically AUR, but you also have all the clearance that you took in the back half and you're going to be remerchandising and getting better overall in-stocks in the stores such that transactions could also accelerate. And then on the gross margin side of it, in the Foot Locker gross margin, was there any remnant clearance in there? And presumably, we didn't have any of the buying synergies in there yet.
On the gross margin piece, there was certainly still some clearance; there is always clearance in a retail business. Product that was expected to sell and didn't is part of normal retail. We were pleased with what we did at Foot Locker. We haven't provided detailed transaction and traffic metrics for comp reporting purposes until it becomes comp in the fourth quarter. But we are right on schedule with what we're doing at Foot Locker and looking forward to the back-to-school inflection point when we've bought the product and will launch the relaunch marketing campaign. Regarding buying synergies, there are none in the gross margin yet.
Our next question comes from the line of Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Advisory Group.
I have two questions on Foot Locker. Ed, you mentioned earlier that you were planning on doing more than 250 stores on the Fast Break conversions after back-to-school. How many can you think you can do for the year with the double-digit comps? Would you look to accelerate that? And the second question is on the changes on the merchandising plan for back-to-school and the back half. Can you talk about what categories will see more pronounced changes for the consumer, whether it's basketball, casual running or any more details you can share?
The Fast Break rollout will have about 250 stores by back-to-school. We will continue the program through the holidays and will have additional stores done by the end of the third quarter and into the fourth quarter, but we're not providing a specific guidance on additional numbers now as we're balancing rollout and potential disruption into the holiday period. For merchandising plans for back-to-school, you'll see a better assortment of women's product, improved basketball assortments including both performance and retro categories, better performance running and more storytelling around footwear. You'll also see better apparel assortments tied to the footwear stories and improved accessory assortments that Foot Locker had been out of in the past, all of which we believe will help drive the business forward at this inflection point.
Our final question comes from the line of Joseph Civello with Truist Securities.
I was wondering, is there anything you could parse out in your data that suggests you might be getting incremental comp lift from the usage of GLP-1s, anything like the categories or the sizing or something like that?
We don't have specific data on that. For a long time now, we've seen consumers lean into a healthier, more active lifestyle post-COVID — outdoor living, team sports, golf. So in general our consumer is doing well, but we don't have any specific correlation to GLP-1 usage.
Got it. And then maybe just one follow-up. Can you give any color on the promotional environment, maybe how it impacts both the DICK'S and the Foot Locker sides of the business?
In Q1, promotions were not a major factor. On both the DICK'S and Foot Locker sides, we manage through promotional environments in ways that are best for the consumer and for our business, and we're very surgical about it. We have advanced pricing capabilities that allow us to be curated in how we approach promotions. There's nothing on the horizon that is materially different at this time.
We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Lauren Hobart, President and CEO, for closing remarks.
Thank you, everybody, for your interest in DICK'S and thank you to our 100,000 teammates and associates around the country and around the world. We have the best team in sports, and we're very grateful for everything you do. Thank you all.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.