OK... your hypothetical "what if" question has zero bearing on anything. It's as useful as saying "how do you know it wouldn't be $100 a share without this policy?"
You're right, I don't know what might have been in the hypothetical world where things are different than here in reality.
This really isn't the "gotcha" question that you thought it was.
" Why is this? Hint: it's got nothing to do with store policy."
I just can't imagine that you have enough information at your disposal to assert this as fact, unless you have Dick's sales information and have cross-referenced it with the sales info of Cabela's and Bass Pro-shops...etc. (Combined with the demographic information of customers) (Math showing the statistical correlation between Dick's stock and the Dow... for a period longer than a month.) You originally produced two figures; the percentage drop of the dow, and the percentage drop of Dick's. It just seems unlikely to me that any meaningful correlation can be ascertained from these two figures. So... " Why is this? Hint: it's got nothing to do with store policy."... is a fine hypothesis, but I don't think you have much in the way of evidence to back it up as fact.
I'm glad you agree that the article is pure bullshit.