• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, March 20, 2024

Dick’s Sporting Goods has stepped up expansion of its House of Sport concept, and who better to promote the jumbo stores than a jumbo star?

Enter J.J. Watt, retired NFL legend, in a five-minute mockumentary. He sneaks into a House of Sport after hours with his film crew, determined to make a movie so fabulous that Kealia, his pro-soccer-playing wife, is willing to move into one of the stores.

In “J.J.’s House,” a camera crew terrified of getting caught follows him as he tours the store. Watt extols House of Sport’s many virtues, calling the store “an athlete’s paradise.”

“Now that I’m retired, my wife and I want to find our forever home,” he tells the camera. “She wants a nice neighborhood with good schools. And I want to live in a Dick’s House of Sport.”

Mark Rooks, vice president of creative, sponsorships and entertainment, says the initial spark came from Watt himself. After appearing at a House of Sport grand opening last summer, the football player remarked on social media that he wouldn’t mind living in the store.

“We knew right away that we wanted to explore a long-term partnership with him,” Rooks tells Marketing Daily via email. “After drafting the initial storyboard and script, Kealia got on board quickly. Having her in the content helped us tell a complete story and added another layer of humor.”

The campaign also includes shorter versions for social media. “But we went the route of a longer film because we wanted to be able to tell a complete story that our traditional ads don’t have the real estate to tell,” Rooks adds. “This content allows us to not only inform viewers of our House of Sport concept but also to entertain them along the way.”

Dick’s made the film with OBB Branded, a division of OBB Media.

Besides Watt’s gratuitous use of air quotes when talking about his “baby,” he tries to win his wife over by promising her a whole house for her shoes, “so many urinals!,’’ a rock wall for date nights, and her own soccer field in the back yard.

Dick’s currently has 12 House of Sport units up and running. And at a time when most retailers are looking for ways to shrink their store footprints, the company is leaning into extra-large thinking, planning eight more this year. Those include high-profile locations, such as Boston’s Prudential Center and stores in Pittsburgh, Miami, and Tampa.

The retailer says it will have 75 to 100 House of Sport stores by 2027.

House of Sport locations are much larger than Dick’s regular stores, at roughly 100,000+ square feet. They include multiple experiential components where people can test gear and apparel, including climbing walls, multiple golf bays with TrackMan simulators, and HitTrax multisport cages for baseball, softball, and soccer.

Stores also connect with community sporting events, partnering with local teams and organizations.