The Big World Of Licensing

The World of Merchandising and Licensing Can Look Quite Daunting. Here’s the Route Map...

- Jiggy George

The licensing world has today diversified into multiple genres of licensing making it one of the most interesting industries across the globe. Entertainment, Sports, Celebrity and Publishing licensing have been driving forces in the last 4-5 years and in this article we will focus on two of the most important categories - Entertainment, particularly films, and Sports as the emerging forces in India, the potential, challenges and way forward.

Entertainment licensing includes the licensing opportunity springing primarily from feature films, television shows, video games, online entertainment and social media. Sports Licensing includes major sports leagues which operate the licensing business for its teams. It also includes sports organizations like IOC International Olympic Committee and FIFA World Cup as well as athletes. Globally, Entertainment licensing holds sway in the licensing world accounting for almost 45% of the market share of the 251 billion dollar industry as per Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association Annual global report, 2016. Sports is another solid 10% accounting for approximately 25 billion US$ at retail.