Shoppers already know the two big boxes. One sells the travel-team cleats. The other sells the deer-lease cooler and a box of shells on the same trip. The score gap is not a mood. Dick's Sporting Goods sits at 80/100, extremely woke, and that row is still in content review. Academy Sports + Outdoors sits at 10/100, mildly woke, and that row is published. Seventy points. Same Saturday errand. Different file.
Why the cart actually splits
Dick's is the largest sporting goods retailer in the country on our description: more than 850 locations, plus Golf Galaxy, Public Lands, and Going Going Gone. The Academy file adds a later note: Dick's has owned Foot Locker, Champs Sports, WSS, and atmos since September 2025.
Academy is the Texas chain. The published description puts roughly 300 stores across the South and Midwest, with hunting, fishing, camping, and firearms on the same floor as team sports. The index puts a number on that door.
The six buckets, where the file actually has them
BuyWokeFree scores six dimensions: ESG, DEI, Pride, the HRC Corporate Equality Index, left-leaning political posture, and CEO Action-style activism. They add to 100. We print a bucket only when the brand file itemizes it. We do not backfill the rest to make a chart look finished.
Academy's published summary is blunt. ESG-style disclosure is 10. Every other dimension is zero. That 10 is the whole score. Here is what those zeros mean in the file's own record:
- No DEI department, no diversity officer, no representation targets, and no equity language in the investor disclosures.
- Never rated on the HRC Corporate Equality Index. No Pride event sponsorship found.
- Charitable rules require a 501(c)(3) with a sports, outdoors, or first-responder mission near a store, and they exclude groups tied to religious or political organizations. That cuts both ways. It is not a conservative PAC in a polo.
- The "sense of belonging" line in the team-member pillar predates the 2025 corporate rebranding wave. It is not a renamed DEI office.
- No net-zero framework, no ESG-linked pay, and no seat at an outside ratings body. The 10 points are disclosure paperwork. The summary says so.
Political-giving percentages that used to sit in an earlier Academy summary were withdrawn. We could not re-verify them. They are not in the score. Do not quote a party split we already pulled.
Dick's does not get the same six-line table. The writeup field is empty, and the score summary does not split 80 into ESG, DEI, Pride, CEI, politics, and CEO Action. What the content-review file does record is a stack, not a grid: a perfect HRC score, called the Equality 100 Award; extensive DEI programs; an ESG framework; criticism from conservative investors and the National Center for Public Policy Research; a post-Parkland pull of assault-style rifles; and political contributions to candidates who support LGBTQ+ rights and gun control.
Eighty is the number on the row. Content review means we are not calling that row published. We will not invent the split to make the chart look done.
The 2018 gun-counter split
This is the cleanest non-score receipt in either summary.
Academy's file says the chain declined to follow Dick's in restricting firearm sales in 2018. Dick's file says the company pulled assault-style rifles after Parkland. Two sentences. Same season. Opposite sides of the aisle.
We are not updating either chain's 2026 gun counter from this article. The Academy description still lists firearms among what the stores sell. The Dick's summary stops at the post-Parkland pull. If you need today's SKU list, walk the store. The index is not a live inventory feed. It is a record of what the companies did, and of what they published about it.
The other two doors
If Dick's at 80 and Academy at 10 were the only names, the verdict would be too neat. They are not.
REI is published at 55/100, woke. Member-owned, founded in 1938, built for camping and climbing rather than youth-league cleats. The writeup records a Cooperative Action Fund gift of $6.1 million to more than 260 organizations in 2023, and a $4 million social-justice commitment in 2022. Those are dated receipts, not a claim about this year's checkbook. Fifty-five is still a woke score. A co-op card does not wash it.
Bass Pro Shops reads 0/100, not woke, and the row is in content review. The file records no documented ESG or DEI program, no Pride sponsorship, no HRC CEI listing, and no CEO Action pledge. It also notes a 1792 Exchange "Lower Risk" rating. A zero in review is not a published zero. We will not hand you Bass Pro as a finished woke-free stamp while that row is still open. We will tell you the draft number, because hiding it would be the same mistake as inventing one.
For the rest of the shelf, start with Non-Woke Sporting Goods Brands and the broader Non-Woke Sports and Recreation Brands list. The household boxes are the decision. The category pages are the smaller names around them.
What this comparison will not pretend
It will not say a boycott closed Dick's stores. We are not re-auditing an older closure count in this piece, and we are not laundering it into a fresh receipt.
It will not say Dick's rolled DEI back in 2025 or 2026. The content-review summary does not say that. Plenty of companies did retreat. This file does not document a retreat. Sticking a current year on a claim the row does not make would be a lie with a calendar attached.
It will not call Academy woke-free. Ten is mildly woke on our label, and the ten is disclosure, not a Pride campaign. Mildly woke is still a score. It is just not 80.
It will not treat HRC's Equality 100 Award as our six-bucket math. Their 100 and our 100 are different instruments. We cite their award as their award. We cite 80 as our row.
Verdict
If the question is which of these two household sporting-goods stores scores lower, Academy wins by 70 points, and Academy is the published row. Dick's at 80 is the higher score, and it is still in content review, so treat 80 as the working number, not a laminated plaque.
If the question is which big outdoor door has a zero on file, Bass Pro's content-review row says 0. Do not shop that zero as if we had finished the audit.
If the question is whether the co-op is the quiet alternative, no. REI is published at 55, with a multimillion-dollar 2022-2023 giving record in the writeup. That is not Academy, and it is not a pass.
Academy's published 10 is paperwork. Dick's content-review 80 is a CEI award, a DEI stack, an ESG framework, and a gun-counter decision the other chain did not copy. That is the comparison. The rest is the ad on the endcap.