Hibbett, Inc.

Good morning. Please note that we have prepared a slide deck that we will refer to during our prepared remarks. The slide deck is available on Hibbett.com via the investor relations link found at the bottom of the homepage or at investors.hibbett.com and under the news and events section. These materials may help you follow along with our discussion this morning. Before I begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some of management's comments during this conference call are forward-looking statements. These statements, which reflect the company's current views, with respect to future events and financial performance are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to uncertainties and risks. It should be noted that the company's future results may differ materially from those anticipated and discussed in the forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that could cause or contribute to such differences have been described in the news release issued this morning and are noted on slide two of the earnings presentation and the company's annual report on Form 10-K and in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We refer you to those sources for more information. Also, to the extent non-GAAP financial measures are discussed in this call, you may find a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures on our website. Lastly, I'd like to point out that management's remarks during this conference call are based on information and understandings believed accurate as of today's date, August 25th, 2023, Because of the time-sensitive nature of this information, it's the policy of Hibbett to limit the archived replay of this conference call webcast to a period of 30 days. The participants on this call are Mike Longo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jared Briskin, Executive Vice President, Merchandising, Bob Volke, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Quinn, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Digital, and Ben Knighton, Senior Vice President of Operations. I'll now turn the call over to Mike Longo.

Good morning and welcome to the Hibbett Inc. Q2 earnings call. For those of you following along on the slides, I'm on slide three in title overview. We're pleased to report a solid performance for the second quarter. While the current environment remains challenging, we're proud of our ability to execute our strategy and reiterate our guidance for the year. Our consumers are still dealing with higher costs for essential items like food, utilities, and gas, and thus have reduced some of their discretionary spending. While our sales have been affected by this, we've continued to focus on the aspects of our business that we can control. While we have a proven business model that has served us well through all economic cycles, and we remain focused on our competitive advantages, which I'll remind you are a compelling product mix, a superior level of customer service, a best-in-class omnichannel shopping experience, and our strategic positioning in underserved markets. Our footwear business remained consistent in this environment, and we're encouraged by our customers' response to our product line. Coupled with our kickoff to the back-to-school season in Q2, we landed sales in the range of our guidance for the quarter. With the support of our major brand partners, we remain focused on providing a compelling, quality product assortment that appeals to our customers and meets current, more selective demand trends. We believe in this environment is more important than ever to continue to invest in our business model. And those investments mostly focus on the consumer experience to retail and online and the supporting infrastructure that helps deliver a consistent high level of customer service. Of course, one of the more important business model investments we make is in our store footprint. We committed to our previously stated goal to add 40 to 50 net new stores in fiscal 24. Above all, we will continue to build upon the strength of the Hibbett and the City Gear brands and further enhance our strong competitive position in our current and future markets. In short, we're investing in our business model for the long term and believe that we will continue to take market share. Before turning the call over to Jared, I'd like to thank our 11,000 team members across the organization for their hard work and support to our customers. Whether working in one of our more than 1,100 stores in 36 states, our omni-channel platform, or the logistics facilities, or our store sports center, they are the face of Hibbett and provide consistent superior service that is synonymous with our brand. And as I said to the team yesterday, this is my favorite team sport, and I wouldn't trade this team with anyone else's. Thank you. I'll turn the call over to Jared.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning. Please turn to slide four entitled merchandising. The second quarter concluded with a strong start to the back to school season. Footwear remained our strongest category during the quarter, but did decline low single digits versus the prior year. Results of footwear were challenged early in the quarter due to performance of secondary brands and franchises, as well as an unfavorable launch calendar. Results in the latter part of the quarter were much improved due to an improved launch cadence and the start of back to school. Footwear results continue to be driven by product launches as well as the basketball, lifestyle, and casual categories. In addition, we continue to see an improving trend in our running business. Apparel and team sports were both negative for the quarter with apparel down in the high teens. Apparel continues to be affected by promotional activity due to elevated inventory levels in the market. While apparel was a challenge overall, early results of seasonal product as well as back-to-school accessories such as socks and backpacks were encouraging. Specific to footwear apparel, the men's and kids' business was down, while women's was positive. The challenges in the launch calendar and secondary franchises had a broader effect on the men's and kids' businesses. Men's and kids were both down high single digits. Women's was up mid-single digits, driven by strong footwear results. Inventory levels declined slightly in the second quarter versus the first quarter as we made some progress. although we do expect a continued promotional environment and a much more selective consumer at least through the third quarter as we work to reduce our inventory. These promotional efforts as well as support from our key brand partners will help us to achieve our goals for inventory reduction. While year-over-year inventory compares will continue to be volatile due to the challenges that affected the supply chain during fiscal 2023, our expectations remain the same for our inventory levels as we expect year-over-year declines in the second half of the year. I'll now hand it over to Bob to cover our financial results.