Sporting Goods Sales vs Consumer Sentiment
Monthly retail sales and consumer sentiment from Jan 2015 through Apr 2026
Coverage
2015–2026
136 monthly observations
Latest sales
8,803
+32.4% vs pre-2020 average
Full-period correlation
-0.77
12M avg since 2020: +0.04
Jan 2020 = 100
137 / 50
Sales index vs sentiment index
Long-run trend and rolling 12-month correlation
Top panel shows monthly sales and sentiment levels; bottom panel tracks how tightly they moved together over the trailing year.
Readout
- Across the full series, sales rose from 6,656 to 8,803 while sentiment fell from 98.1 to 49.8, producing an overall correlation of -0.77.
- The sharpest shared move is the early-2020 disruption: sales troughed at 3,536 in Apr 2020 before rebounding to a series peak of 8,825 in Mar 2021.
- Seasonality is present but mild: average sales are strongest in Jun and weakest in Apr, staying within roughly ±2% of the full-period mean.
- Since Jan 2020, sales climbed to an index of 137.1 while sentiment fell to 49.9, showing sustained post-pandemic decoupling.
Annual averages since 2020 vs 2019 baseline
| Year | Avg sales | Avg sentiment | Sales vs 2019 | Sentiment vs 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 6,626 | 81.5 | 104.5 | 85.0 |
| 2021 | 8,196 | 77.6 | 129.3 | 80.9 |
| 2022 | 8,229 | 59.0 | 129.8 | 61.4 |
| 2023 | 8,201 | 65.4 | 129.4 | 68.1 |
| 2024 | 7,912 | 72.5 | 124.8 | 75.6 |
| 2025 | 8,070 | 57.6 | 127.3 | 60.0 |
| 2026 YTD | 8,622 | 54.0 | 136.0 | 56.3 |
Seasonality by month
Deviation from the full-period average shows that monthly seasonality is fairly shallow for both series.
Post-2020 trajectory comparison
Both series are indexed to Jan 2020 = 100 to compare how retail sales and consumer sentiment evolved after the disruption.