Pinball license are often about brand awareness or the cool factor of pinball, as pinball, licenses make very little money relative to licensing for other things that sell in mass quantities with high margins.
Often times the fees are barely enough to cover legal and staff expenses for the licensor. Any money Mattel made on the hot wheels license was closer to rounding error than meaningful revenue. They did it because it was cool, and because of Roger Sharpe. They want it to be cash flow positive, but if they want to make real money, pinball is not the product to license.
With a third party is hired to handle the license, they are only going to pursue things that are profitable for both them and their clients, they are not likely going to value “coolness”, they may not even view it as something to bring to their client. Now if the client says “we want to be on a pinball machine”, they might pursue it, but their fee demands could still be unworkable for pinball, they are in it to make money. They will also work on their timeline not yours. Need something approved, might take a day, might take a week, might take longer.
In addition they will always want a guaranteed minimum paid upfront, figure 25k minimum. NFL for example won’t even talk to someone without at least a 200k, multi year guarantee and proof you have generated those kind of sales numbers. At least those were the numbers 7 years ago, probably a lot higher now.
So even if the TPB guys want to do it, odds are the license company is not going to just give it away cheap and lose money managing it. They will tell the boys it is not viable.
In just the last few weeks, John has been moving dates as things have not gone as planned, now that’s pinball!
Boerne, TX
Halifax, NS
