HOKA’S NEXT $100 MILLION OPPORTUNITY MAY BE HIDING IN 15 STORES

HOKA is starting small at Academy Sports + Outdoors. The ambition may be considerably bigger.

The significance of a 15-store rollout lies in what it could reveal about HOKA’s next phase of growth: how much demand the brand can capture by becoming easier to buy, and how much of that business will be genuinely new.

Academy’s announced early-October introduction covers stores in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, plus its e-commerce business. The initial assortment includes the Clifton 11, Arahi 9, Challenger 8, Rincon 5 and Torrent 5, putting established HOKA running franchises in front of Academy’s broad customer base.

That creates an opportunity for both companies. HOKA can reach shoppers through another familiar retailer. Academy can strengthen its premium footwear offering. The pilot will test whether those opportunities translate into productive sales while preserving the appeal that makes HOKA worth seeking out.

More reach, with something to protect

Academy ended its second quarter with 327 stores. That gives a successful pilot room to grow, although a chainwide HOKA rollout has not been announced. The retailer’s results also show why assortment matters: total sales rose 3% in the quarter, while comparable sales declined 0.4%. A new brand’s value depends partly on what it can do inside existing stores.

HOKA already operates across a broad retail network. Its distribution includes specialty running, outdoor and sporting-goods retailers, selected online sellers, fashion retailers and higher-end department stores. Each additional account creates another place to encounter the brand, and another environment in which its product story has to hold up.

The balance between wholesale and direct sales is important. HOKA generated $703.5 million in the quarter ended June 30, up 7.7%. Wholesale revenue increased 2.9%, while direct-to-consumer revenue grew 17.3%. Shipment timing affected wholesale growth, so those rates need context. But they underline that HOKA is developing several routes to consumers at once.

An Academy customer may discover HOKA while shopping for something else, or choose the store because it now carries the brand. Both would be valuable outcomes. A purchase simply moving from another HOKA seller to Academy has different implications for the brand’s overall growth.

That is why the quality of the rollout matters alongside its size. Assortment, presentation, staff knowledge and full-price selling will help determine whether greater availability reinforces HOKA’s premium position. The pilot gives both companies a chance to learn before committing to substantially more shelf space.

The shelf is already occupied

Academy already carries Brooks, Nike, adidas, ASICS, New Balance and Puma. HOKA enters a footwear department where shoppers have established alternatives. Its arrival could attract new buyers, encourage customers to trade up or shift purchases away from another brand. Those outcomes would produce different results for Academy.

The potential scale is substantial. Jefferies analyst Jonathan Matuszewski sees a path to more than $100 million in annual HOKA sales at Academy by 2030, according to WWD. His estimate assumes a successful pilot, wider store distribution and HOKA reaching a mid- to high-single-digit share of Academy’s footwear category. The store-level projection excludes potential online upside.

Those assumptions put the emphasis on execution. The number is a conditional analyst estimate, with a larger rollout and meaningful customer adoption still to be earned.

For Academy, $100 million in HOKA sales would not automatically mean $100 million of additional company revenue. If a shopper switches brands, the retailer gains only the change in spending, alongside any effect on margin or future visits. Bringing in a new customer or winning a purchase that would otherwise happen elsewhere offers a different opportunity.

That makes sales per store, new-customer traffic, repeat purchases and markdown levels useful tests of this partnership. More locations would expand the opportunity. Evidence that the product sells consistently, at attractive prices, would make the expansion worth pursuing.

HOKA’s growth story has been built around creating demand. Increasingly, the next phase is about capturing that demand through distribution. Academy offers a small starting point with room to become significant. What happens inside those first 15 stores will help determine how much of that room HOKA can occupy.

running.news — The business, culture, and future of running.