KILLER INSTINCT

TO OUTMANEUVER HIS RIVALS, DICK'S SPORTING GOODS' OWNER, ED STACK, DECIDED TO TAKE THE AXE TO HIS OWN STORES. IT HAS MADE HIM BILLIONS.

- JEMIMA MCEVOYΥ

Ed Stack stands with his arms crossed, surveying the wall of colorful basketball shoes near the entrance of Dick’s Sporting Goods’ House of Sport in Pittsburgh’s Ross Park Mall. The vast selection of around 2,400 pairs of Nike Air Jordans, Under Armour Currys and more—known as the “Footwear Deck”—is a key part of Dick’s strategy to stand out in the digital age.

A separate soccer-skewed section, House of Cleats (pictured on page 92), has at least 300 additional pairs. “People really want to feel it, touch it, try it on and experience it,” explains Stack, 70, Dick’s executive chairman.

That’s why there’s also a 31.5-foot indoor climbing wall visible directly over Stack’s shoulder, nearby batting cages, golf bays and even an 18,000-square-foot outdoor sports field for customers to use. Plus there are technicians on hand to restring racquets, lace baseball gloves and sharpen ice skates.

These bells and whistles are features of a new jumbo store format that Dick’s is opening across the country. Each House of Sport is double to triple the size of a regular 50,000-square-foot location. The Pittsburgh megastore, the closest one to Dick’s corporate headquarters in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania—where Forbes interviewed Stack in November—opened last April in a long-abandoned Sears. The third-biggest Dick’s location to date at 140,000 square feet. (The biggest, nearly 150,000 square feet, is in Salem, New Hampshire.) Fifteen more of these immense complexes are already open, with plans to retrofit up to 100 of Dick's 725 U.S. locations by 2027. (The company has another 136 “specialty” stores, including Golf Galaxy and outdoor chain Public Lands.) Forbes estimates the retailer will spend nearly $2 billion on this expansion.