Academy Sports + Outdoors has been executing their new store growth strategy over the past three years. It’s been fast paced with 16 new stores in 2025 and 24 in 2026.
They break their openings up into three different categories. They consider their original core states as legacy market openings (Texas and eastern border states), existing market openings are in the southeast where there is already some brand awareness, and new market openings in low market awareness areas further north.
