Academy Sports + Outdoors, a leading full-line sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer, has launched Academy Retail Media (ARM) as the next evolution of its omnichannel growth and customer strategy. ARM brings together Academy’s expanding physical and digital reach, differentiated customer relationships and longstanding brand partnerships to create more relevant customer experiences and measurable growth opportunities.
The launch comes as Academy continues to expand its store footprint, boost e-commerce and enhance customer personalisation capabilities. With more than 320 stores across 21 states and a growing base of 52 million verified customers, ARM gives brand partners a new way to translate Academy’s customer relationships and geographic reach into purchase-based audience intelligence, omnichannel activation and closed-loop measurement.
“ARM is a natural extension of how Academy is growing our business and deepening relationships with customers and brand partners,” said Chad Fox, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer. “Our stores, digital platforms and customer insights give us a distinct view of how active families and sports and outdoor enthusiasts shop. By bringing those strengths together, we can help brands engage customers more meaningfully, demonstrate the business impact of their investment and create a better, more personalised Academy experience.”
ARM enables brands to reach verified Academy customers across onsite, in-app and offsite channels and connect media exposure to online and in-store sales. Advertisers receive transparent, closed-loop measurement of same-SKU sales, broader brand halo and incremental lift, helping them optimise campaigns against outcomes such as return on advertising spend, customer acquisition, new product launches, reactivation and sales growth. For Academy customers, ARM will support more relevant product discovery, brand experiences and offers throughout the shopping journey.
Academy’s audiences include Always Game Families – active households with children in sports that purchase across eight or more categories and spend approximately twice as much annually as the average sporting goods and outdoor consumer – along with sporting families and outdoor enthusiasts. Several leading national brands are already activating ARM campaigns across awareness, consideration and conversion, demonstrating early momentum as the network launches.
