Dick’s Sporting Goods is the largest sporting goods retail brand in the United States. The retailer operates primarily in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, and was established in 1948 by Richard Stack, also known as ‘Dick.’ The store is also listed on the Fortune 500 list of retail companies. The company began operations as a fishing tackle store in Birmingham, New York. 

Later, in the early 1980s, Richard’s son Edward D Stack purchased the business from his father. At that time, the company had two stores in Upstate New York. Stack expanded the business by appointing a new board of directors, opening new stores, and shifting the headquarters to Pittsburgh in 1994. The company went public in 2002 and operated only in the Eastern United States until 2009. Dick’s later expanded to other parts of the country, particularly to the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast and established 357 stores in 38 states.

In 2012, Dick’s opened three True Runner stores, which were exclusively meant for runners in Boston, Brentwood, a suburb in St. Louis and Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood. In 2015, the company launched Chelsea Collective, a store selling women’s fitness and lifestyle products. The stores closed in 2017. The company also launched Dick’s Team Sports, a subsidiary company offering websites, uniforms, and sponsorships for the youth of the country.

The sporting goods retailer also made several key acquisitions including the Galyan’s Trading Company, an American sporting goods chain in 2004, followed by Affinity Sports, a sporting goods company in San Diego in mid-2016. Dick’s then went on to acquire Golfsmith, the largest golf retailer in the United States in October 2016. The golf retailer giant was rebranded to Golf Galaxy in 2017.