Academy Sports + Outdoors AI Market Strategy Report - Outdoor Retail and Gear Marketplaces

Answer Capsule

Academy Sports + Outdoors holds meaningful presence across AI research surfaces in the Outdoor Retail and Gear Marketplaces category but converts far less of that presence into actual recommendations. The September 2026 LLM Authority Index benchmark shows the brand at 10.67% valid recommendation coverage, sixth among ten tracked retailers, while its raw mention presence rate sits at 47.94%. The clearest win is a rank-one rate of 1.50%, which outpaces larger rivals such as Cabela's and Backcountry. The clearest weakness is a top-three rate of just 4.87%, meaning the brand rarely reaches the shortlist even when it appears. The clearest opportunity is closing the gap between being mentioned and being chosen in high-intent discovery prompts.

Who This Report Is For

Questions This Section Answers

• Which teams at Academy Sports + Outdoors should use this benchmark to understand AI recommendation performance?
• Which competitor set does this report position Academy Sports + Outdoors against in AI-generated answers?

This report is for Academy Sports + Outdoors marketing, ecommerce, and brand strategy leaders who need to understand how AI systems position the brand against REI, Bass Pro Shops, and other outdoor retailers at the moment shoppers ask for recommendations.

Report Card

Executive Summary

Academy Sports + Outdoors is visible in AI-generated recommendations across the outdoor retail category, but the benchmark shows the brand is under-recommended relative to its presence. The September 2026 LLM Authority Index recorded 256 mentions of the brand across 534 qualified observations, a raw mention presence rate of 47.94%. Of those, only 57 were valid recommendations, producing a valid recommendation coverage of 10.67%. The gap between presence and recommendation is the defining pattern for this brand in the current benchmark.

The brand's sentiment profile is positive-leaning but muted. The dataset marked 81 positive mentions, 175 neutral mentions, and zero negative mentions, producing a net sentiment score of 0.3164. That score is the lowest among the ten tracked retailers, which suggests that when Academy Sports + Outdoors appears in AI answers, it is more often referenced as context than framed as a preferred choice.

The strongest cluster for the brand is the Brand Recommendation cluster, which is the only active cluster in the current public benchmark. Within that cluster, Academy Sports + Outdoors holds a top-three rate of 4.87% and a rank-one rate of 1.50%. The rank-one rate is notable because it exceeds Cabela's at 0.94% and Backcountry at 0.56%, despite those brands holding higher overall recommendation coverage. When Academy Sports + Outdoors does earn a first-position recommendation, it competes effectively.

The weakest signal is the top-three rate. At 4.87%, the brand reaches the shortlist in fewer than one in twenty qualified observations. REI, by comparison, holds a top-three rate of 21.91%, and Bass Pro Shops holds 14.42%. The brand is present in AI answers but is not being surfaced as a leading option at the rate its presence would suggest.

Platform-level data shows the strongest recommendation signal for Academy Sports + Outdoors on Copilot, where the brand holds a 9.1% valid recommendation coverage and a 5.5% rank-one rate. The weakest platform signal appears on Gemini, where valid recommendation coverage drops to 4.2%. The brand's recommendation coverage on AI Mode is 11.6%, which is closer to its overall average but still well behind the category leaders.

The benchmark classifies Academy Sports + Outdoors as stable month over month, with valid recommendation coverage moving from 11.2% in August 2026 to 10.67% in September 2026, a decline of roughly 0.5 points. That movement is within normal variation. The brand's position relative to the category has not shifted materially, but the structural gap between presence and recommendation remains the central strategic issue.

What Academy Sports + Outdoors Is Winning

Questions This Section Answers

• Where does Academy Sports + Outdoors outperform competitors with higher overall recommendation coverage?
• Which platform gives the brand its strongest rank-one recommendation signal?

The brand's clearest win is its rank-one rate of 1.50%, which places it ahead of Cabela's (0.94%) and Backcountry (0.56%) despite those brands holding higher overall recommendation coverage. This suggests that when Academy Sports + Outdoors is selected as the top recommendation, the brand's positioning is strong enough to compete with larger outdoor retailers.

The brand also shows a meaningful recommendation signal on Copilot, where it holds a 9.1% valid recommendation coverage and a 5.5% rank-one rate. Among the six tracked platforms, Copilot produces the highest rank-one rate for Academy Sports + Outdoors, indicating that the brand's recommendation profile is strongest on that surface.

Academy Sports + Outdoors recorded zero negative mentions in September 2026. The absence of negative framing is a baseline strength, though it does not offset the brand's low recommendation conversion rate.

Where Academy Sports + Outdoors Has the Clearest AI Visibility Gaps

Questions This Section Answers

• How much of Academy Sports + Outdoors' AI mention presence converts into valid recommendations?
• How does the brand's top-three rate compare with competitors that have similar or lower presence rates?
• Which platforms show the widest recommendation gap between Academy Sports + Outdoors and category leaders?

The primary gap is recommendation conversion. Academy Sports + Outdoors appears in 47.94% of qualified observations but earns a valid recommendation in only 10.67%. That means roughly four out of five times the brand is mentioned, it is not recommended. REI converts 37.5% of its mentions into recommendations, and Bass Pro Shops converts 27.0%. Academy Sports + Outdoors converts 22.3%.

The top-three rate tells a similar story. At 4.87%, the brand reaches the shortlist in fewer than one in twenty observations. Backcountry, which holds a lower raw mention presence rate of 33.3%, achieves a top-three rate of 9.18%. Scheels, which holds a similar presence rate of 44.4%, achieves a top-three rate of 7.30%. Academy Sports + Outdoors is being mentioned alongside these competitors but is not being elevated into the shortlist at a comparable rate.

Platform-level gaps reinforce the pattern. On Gemini, the brand holds a valid recommendation coverage of 4.2%, compared to REI's 41.7% and Backcountry's 33.3%. On Perplexity, the brand holds 8.7% coverage, while REI holds 40.6% and Bass Pro Shops holds 29.0%. The brand's recommendation presence is thin across most platforms, with Copilot providing the only above-average signal.

The brand's neutral mention share is also high. Of 256 total mentions, 175 were classified as neutral, meaning the brand is referenced as context rather than as a recommended option. This pattern suggests that AI systems recognize Academy Sports + Outdoors as a relevant retailer but do not consistently position it as a preferred choice.

Biggest Opportunity

Questions This Section Answers

• Where is Academy Sports + Outdoors losing shortlist eligibility despite strong AI presence?
• Which layers shape how AI systems frame the brand in discovery prompts, and where should improvement start?

The clearest opportunity for Academy Sports + Outdoors is to convert its existing presence into shortlist eligibility. The brand is already mentioned in nearly half of all qualified observations, which means the awareness layer is functioning. The gap is in the recommendation layer, where the brand is not being elevated into top-three positions at a rate comparable to competitors with similar or lower presence.

Closing this gap requires targeted work on the prompt, page, and citation layers that shape how AI systems frame the brand in discovery prompts. The brand's strongest platform signal on Copilot suggests that surface may offer the most immediate path to improving recommendation conversion. The brand's rank-one rate of 1.50% also indicates that when the brand is selected, it competes effectively, which means the issue is frequency rather than positioning quality.

Competitive Landscape

Questions This Section Answers

• Who leads the outdoor retail category on AI recommendation rates?
• Where does Academy Sports + Outdoors rank against REI, Bass Pro Shops, and other tracked retailers on top-three and rank-one rates?
• What does the brand's average recommended rank say about how it typically appears in AI shortlists?

REI holds dominant recommendation power in the Outdoor Retail and Gear Marketplaces category, with Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's forming a clear second tier. Academy Sports + Outdoors sits in the middle of the tracked set, visible but under-recommended relative to its presence rate.

Average recommended rank covers rank-eligible recommendations only.

Academy Sports + Outdoors ranks sixth by top-three rate and sixth by rank-one rate. The brand's average recommended rank of 3.16 is the second-lowest among the top six brands, indicating that when the brand is recommended, it typically appears near the bottom of the shortlist rather than at the top.

Prompt Evidence

Questions This Section Answers

• In which high-intent prompts did Academy Sports + Outdoors appear without being recommended?
• Which prompts produced the brand's strongest platform-level recommendation signal?

Google AI Mode / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "Where can I get a good quality backpack?" Result: Academy Sports + Outdoors was mentioned but not recommended in a top-three position, while REI and Backcountry were elevated into the shortlist.

ChatGPT / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "What is the best cooler for keeping ice the longest?" Result: The brand appeared as a neutral reference alongside Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's, with no rank-one recommendation credit.

Copilot / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "camping stores near me" Result: Academy Sports + Outdoors earned a rank-one recommendation on Copilot, one of the brand's strongest platform-level signals in the benchmark.

Perplexity / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "keen hiking boots" Result: The brand was mentioned as a retail option but did not appear in the top-three recommendation set, which was led by REI and Backcountry.

What CiteWorks Studio Would Do Next

Phase 1: AI Market Discovery Audit Map the specific prompts where Academy Sports + Outdoors is mentioned but not recommended, and identify which competitors are capturing those shortlist positions.

Phase 2: Recommendation Readiness Plan Prioritize the prompt clusters and platforms where the brand's presence-to-recommendation gap is widest, starting with Gemini and Perplexity.

Phase 3: Owned Answer Layer Buildout Strengthen the brand's owned content so AI systems have clearer, more citable signals that position Academy Sports + Outdoors as a recommended option rather than a neutral reference.

Phase 4: Citation / Authority Layer Development Build the public evidence layer, including third-party sources and structured data, that AI systems draw on when forming recommendations in the outdoor retail category.

Phase 5: Monthly AI Visibility and Recommendation Tracking Track valid recommendation coverage, top-three rate, and rank-one rate month over month to measure whether the brand is closing the gap with REI, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabela's.

Why This Matters

AI presence alone is not enough. Academy Sports + Outdoors is mentioned in nearly half of all qualified observations in the outdoor retail category, but it earns a valid recommendation in only about one in ten. That gap means the brand is visible at the discovery stage but is not being chosen at the decision stage. In a category where REI converts 37.5% of its mentions into recommendations and Bass Pro Shops converts 27.0%, the brand's 22.3% conversion rate represents a structural disadvantage.

The next move is targeted correction of the prompt, page, and citation layers that shape how AI systems frame the brand. The benchmark shows where the brand is winning and losing. A company-level audit shows why, and what to do about it.

Core Metrics

Sentiment Score

Sentiment Score = (positive mentions × 1 + neutral mentions × 0 + negative mentions × -1) / total mentions

For Academy Sports + Outdoors in September 2026: (81 × 1 + 175 × 0 + 0 × -1) / 256 = 0.3164.

This score matters because unclassified mention counts are misleading. A brand can appear frequently in AI answers without being recommended, and counting all mentions as wins is bad measurement. Academy Sports + Outdoors has 256 mentions but only 57 valid recommendations. The remaining 199 mentions are either neutral references or context-only appearances that do not represent recommendation credit.

Share of voice is a diagnostic metric, not a business KPI. A positive recommendation, a neutral reference, a cautionary mention, and a competitor-displaced mention are not equal. Academy Sports + Outdoors holds a positive-leaning sentiment profile, but its high neutral share (68.4% of mentions) indicates that most of its appearances are informational rather than recommendation-led. Classified sentiment is required before interpreting AI visibility, and the brand's current profile suggests that presence is not translating into preference.

Sentiment by Platform

Methodology

1. This report is a benchmark-based analysis of Academy Sports + Outdoors within the Outdoor Retail and Gear Marketplaces category, using data from the LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index for September 2026.
2. The reporting window is September 2026, with month-over-month comparison to August 2026 where available.
3. Six AI platforms were tracked: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.
4. The benchmark produced 534 qualified observations in September 2026, up from 519 in August 2026.
5. The competitor universe includes ten tracked brands: REI, Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, Backcountry, Scheels, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Sierra, Public Lands, evo, and CampSaver.
6. All qualified observations in September 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation cluster. The Pricing & Value and Multi-Brand Comparison clusters contained no qualified observations in the current public benchmark.
7. Stage 0 extraction retained the query, AI surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources.
8. A mention is defined as any appearance of the brand in an AI response, regardless of whether the brand was recommended.
9. A valid recommendation is defined as an observation where the brand appeared in a recommendation context and received rank credit. Neutral, cautionary, or context-only mentions are not counted as valid recommendations.
10. The qualified denominator of 534 observations differs from the raw collection universe of 800 prompts. All brand-level percentages are calculated within the qualified set only.
11. Several brands in this category, including Public Lands, evo, and CampSaver, have low valid recommendation counts. Their coverage rates are more sensitive to small absolute changes and should be read with that caveat in mind.
12. Movement between months is directional analysis. It identifies changes worth investigating but does not by itself establish the cause of those changes.

See Where AI Is Recommending Your Brand

The public benchmark shows where Academy Sports + Outdoors is winning and losing in AI-generated recommendations. A company-level AI visibility audit maps the specific prompts, platforms, and competitor patterns that shape those outcomes, and turns the benchmark's directional signals into a prioritized strategy for closing the recommendation gap.