The average royalty for sports-related licensed goods was 10.1 percent last year, The Licensing Letter said.
"Baseball fans have a sense of history, and not everyone does these days," said Ira Mayer, the editor of The Licensing Letter, which tracks the sale of licensed sporting goods.
But it is often unclear how many of those fans might have gone to that game because of, say, the opponent that day, or whether they substituted one game for another, said Ira Mayer, the editor of The Licensing Letter, a newsletter that tracks the licensed goods industry.
The leagues have been relying more heavily on novelties recently because sales of licensed goods over all slumped in 2008 and 2009 after rising steadily for most of the past decade, according to The Licensing Letter, a newsletter that tracks the licensed goods industry.
"You wind up with a limited number of options that are going to be meaningful for the fans," said Ira Mayer, the publisher of The Licensing Letter, a newsletter that tracks retail sales of licensed merchandise, adding, "You weren't going to give away an Alex Rodriguez bobblehead this year".
The publishing category generated some $1.3 billion in retail sales last year, a tiny portion compared with huge categories like the $17.9 billion business of corporate branding, or the $15.9 billion in licensed retail sales from the entertainment industry, according to The Licensing Letter.
But retail sales of the league's licensed merchandise are forecast to fall 2.5 percent this year, to $2.75 billion, according to The Licensing Letter.
"Sometimes, licensed merchandise is not about the revenue, but the impression it makes," said Ira Mayer, editor of The Licensing Letter.
Business Valuation Resources, Portland, Ore., acquired the assets of EPM Communications, New York, which publishes newsletters like The Licensing Letter.
"I think in the merchandise field, people are very hopeful," said Marty Brochstein, executive editor of The Licensing Letter.
His stories lend themselves to comedy or romance, says Ira Mayer, the publisher of The Licensing Letter, a newsletter for the licensing industry.
