Dick's Sporting Goods Inc

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Krista, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Dick's Sporting Goods Incorporated third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. And after the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you'd like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Nate Gilch, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Nate, you may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our third quarter 2024 results. On today's call will be 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.dix.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, for your future scheduling purposes, we are tentatively planning to publish our fourth quarter 2024 earnings results on March 11, 2025. With that, I will now turn the call over to Lauren.

Thank you, Nate, and good morning, everyone. As we announced earlier this morning, we delivered another strong quarter. We are very proud of our Q3 results and our performance year-to-date. These results show how well our long-term strategies are working and the great execution from our team. Our Q3 comps increased 4.2%, driven by our four strategic pillars of omni-channel athlete experience differentiated product assortment, deep engagement with the Dick's brand, and our knowledgeable and passionate teammates who are integral to our success. We had an excellent back-to-school season and continue to gain market share. Our third quarter gross margin expanded 67 basis points from last year's non-GAAP results, driven by higher merchandise margins. And we delivered APS of $2.75. As a result of our strong performance in the quarter and the continued confidence we have in our business, we are again raising our full-year outlook. We now expect ComSales growth for the full year to be in the range of 3.6% to 4.2%, and EPS to be in the range of $13.65 to $13.95. At the heart of our long-term strategies is the omni-channel athlete experience. We're continuing to invest across our digital and store experiences with a focus on elevating training, service, and product knowledge to drive enhanced engagement with our athletes. We feel great about the strong performance of House of Sports. We are redefining sports retail and creating strong engagement with our athletes, brand partners, and communities. We continue to see sports having a strong influence on culture and culture on sports. And our House of Sport concept is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of all athletes across both performance and lifestyle. In Q3, we opened three House of Sport locations, followed by two more earlier this month, bringing us to 19 now open ahead of the holiday season. In 2025, we expect to open approximately 15 House of Sport locations, and we remain on track to have 75 to 100 locations open by 2027. Inspired by House of Sport, we continue to revolutionize our 50,000 square foot six stores with a next generation format, which we refer to internally as our Fieldhouse concept. These stores continue to do very well in both sales and profitability. In Q3, we opened five Fieldhouse locations, followed by another four earlier this month, bringing us to 26 now open. In 2025, we expect to open approximately 20 Fieldhouse locations. The Texas market is an exciting growth opportunity for us, and it's one of the areas where we are investing in new house support locations, in marketing, and in our infrastructure to enhance the omnichannel experience for our athletes and capture this potential. This quarter, we broke ground on the new distribution center we've been planning in Fort Worth, Texas, which is expected to open in early 2026. Our digital capabilities are central to our omnichannel athlete experience. We continue to improve the shopping experience for our athletes, including on Dix.com and our Dix mobile app. Our elevated and diverse assortment uniquely positions us as the destination for new products. And this past quarter, we expanded our product launch reservations in our Dix app beyond footwear and golf to include product drops across other key categories. We're also giving our teammates new and improved technology tools to help them find the right products quicker. including expanding our use of RFID technology. As we discussed, Game Changer continues to be a key part of our digital strategy, and it's strengthening our leadership in the multibillion-dollar youth sports tech ecosystem. Over 5.5 million unique users were active on Game Changer in the third quarter, a 21% increase from last year, and we had approximately 2 million average daily active users in the Game Changer app during the quarter. Providing differentiated on-trend products helps make Dick the go-to destination for sport in the U.S. Our House of Sport and Fieldhouse Concepts have opened doors to new brand partnerships and strengthened existing relationships as they enable us to showcase our brand partners and vertical brands in a way no one else can. Our priority categories continue to perform very well, led by important national brands and our flagship vertical brands. and we've deliberately taken steps to be fully stocked across key products and categories for holiday shopping. Looking ahead, we are optimistic about the product pipeline into next year. In closing, we're very pleased with our strong third quarter results and are highly confident in our long-term strategies to drive sustained sales and profit growth. We believe our differentiated product, quality service, and powerful omni-channel experience will resonate well with our athletes this holiday season, along with this year's really fun holiday campaign featuring NFL legend J.J. Watt and his family, which is driving so much buzz. I'd like to thank all of our teammates for their hard work and commitment to big sporting goods and for their focus on delivering great experiences for our athletes this holiday season. With that, I'll turn the call over to Navdeep to share our financial results in more detail.