Support travel for abortions and grow 700 million in value.

6.8 billion dollars is Dick’s Sporting Good’s market cap.

$84.39 is the share price currently.
$76.71 was the share price on Thursday.

Since Thursday, the company has had the stock price rise by 10% and the dollar value on that is about 700 million dollars.

Which Dick’s stock like most companies in retail has fallen this year, where share price was $114 a share at the start of the year and the year and the market cap was closer to 10 billion dollars.

Which this isn’t a problem exclusive to Dick’s.

Walmart is down 15% this year.
Target is down 35%.
Costco is down 17%.

Every major retailer is down and Dick’s being down 26% is part of a bigger issue.

That being said, this recent spike where the company gained value happened due to only one reason.

Roe V Wade

The CEO Lauren Hobart announced that Dick’s Sporting Good’s will join Elon Musk with Tesla and fund any employee’s ability travel to get an abortion.

Some details on Dick’s.

They have 854 stores.
50,000 employees
A projected revenue of 12.3 billion for 2022.
A projected profit of 1.5 billion.

Also fairly solid growth, where revenue is up by 3 billion for 2022 compared to 2021 and profit is is up nearly 300%, where it was 530 million in 2021.

For the actual store locations, I looked at a national map and while they don’t clearly list locations, about 70-80% of stores are based in states which will not ban abortions.

Meaning, while this benefit of travel for employees seeking abortion is a nice thing, the actual costs will be very low on the business, where it’s unlikely it’ll cost the business even a million dollars a year.

Dick’s Sporting Good’s offered a relatively cheap benefit and for the company as a whole, valuation grew almost 700 million.

Final thoughts:

The reason for telling this story is the power of good PR, where just offering employees and customers a simple benefit with a sincere message by it, stocks can get a solid jolt.

It might normalize in the next week, but I actually believe the company will get a sales spike from this more than making up for the benefit’s cost.