By Connor Hart

Academy Sports & Outdoors said sales rose in the recent quarter, and the company guided to potentially return to consistent comparable-sales growth this year as investments it has made in the business have begun to pay off.

The sporting-goods retailer on Tuesday posted a profit of $133.7 million, or $1.98 a share, for its quarter ended Jan. 31. That is roughly flat from a year earlier, when the company posted a profit of $133.6 million, or $1.89 a share.

Stripping out one-time items, earnings were $1.97 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected adjusted earnings of $2.05 a share.

Sales rose 2.5% to $1.72 billion, slightly below the $1.76 billion that Wall Street modeled.

Comparable sales, or those from stores and digital channels open for at least a year, declined 1.6%. Analysts had expected same-store sales to ebb 0.1%.

Chief Executive Steve Lawrence said 2025 marked an inflection point for Academy Sports, as the company gained market share and began putting in place initiatives to help drive sales, such as an acceleration of its digital transformation.

"While we believe many of the macroeconomic pressures that the customer faced in the back half of the year will continue into 2026, we are optimistic the strategies we have in place should enable us to return to consistent comp sales growth," he added.

Looking ahead, Academy Sports expects sales to grow 2% to 5% this year, to between $6.18 billion and $6.36 billion. Comparable sales are forecast to be in the range of down 1% to up 2% for the year. Analysts are looking for sales of $6.47 billion and same-store sales growth of 1.4%.

The company also projected 2026 earnings of $5.65 to $6.15 a share, or $6.10 to $6.60 a share on an adjusted basis. Wall Street modeled earnings of $6.30 a share and adjusted earnings of $6.46 a share.

Shares fell 4.6%, to $53.89, in premarket trading.

Write to Connor Hart at connor.hart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 17, 2026 08:46 ET (12:46 GMT)

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