And the Tennis Racket

The game's white-flanneled old guard could not have been more startled if the Supreme Court had suddenly decided to allow Wheaties to call itself the "Break fast of Justices." To raise money for the cause of amateur tennis, the staid, 86-year-old United States Lawn Tennis Association signed a promotional deal with Manhattan's Licensing Corp. of America, a six-year-old merchandising whiz-bang best known for following up fads with floods of such items as 007 trench coats and after-shave lotion, Batman T shirts, Batpuppets and Batguns.

The company promises to "make tennis big business" in the manner, if not with the mania, of James Bond and Batman. In return for royalties, manufacturers will be licensed to stick "USLTA" and "Davis Cup Team" endorsements on everything from sweat socks to sunglasses. This newest type of tennis racket was proposed by Licensing Corp. President Allan Stone, 43, who won the skeptical USLTA over by arguing that 1) the U.S. Olympic Committee has endorsed Chap Stick and other items, and 2) the royalties should reach $250,000 within two years. Says USLTA President Robert J. Kelleher: "We never really knew how much our endorsements were worth."

The Hero Business. Licensing was just the outfit to tell them. It acts as a sort of broker in what Chairman Jay Emmett, 39, calls the "hero business." It contracts for the licensing rights to properties ranging from TV characters to sports figures. It then licenses manufacturers to use the names to jazz up their own products. Now, with a score of salable names in hand--including TV's Batman and Mission: Impossible--Licensing grandly claims to be No. 1 in "an industry that represents $400 million in annual retail sales."

When they combined their small licensing businesses to form Licensing Corp. in 1961, Stone and Emmett already had such names as Superman and Singer Pat Boone. They really hit it big with James Bond. They began to peddle the rights to 007 in 1962, cashed in when Gold finger reached the theaters in 1965, touching off sales of $50 million in 007 products. The Batboom was even richer. Six months after the Batman TV series began last year, sales of Licensing-promoted Batstuff--1,000 items in all --reached $100 million.

To the Locker Room. Hoping to profit from Licensing's touch, National Periodical Publications, Inc. (Mad magazine. Wonder Woman comics) bought the firm last year for $2,400,000 in stock. Royalties from manufacturers, who pay Licensing 5% of the wholesale price of goods sold with its endorsements, last year totaled some $5,000,000. Half of that goes to the owners of the names; the rest is nearly all profit.

Heroes, however, are not always easy to pick. One of Stone's early miscalculations was Jackie Robinson dolls--which were unaccountably outsold by Rival Joe DiMaggio dolls in Harlem stores. Now, with camp idol Batman beginning to fade, Licensing is going back to the locker room for more durable names. Not long ago, the company got French Diver Jacques Cousteau to give his name to a line of underwater gear. As for tennis and the USLTA, says Stone, they "will outlive us all."

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