Dr. Seuss Enterprises, a private company that has long managed the works of Dr. Seuss, the pen name of the late Theodor Geisel, is now rumored to be exploring a sale of the Seuss assets, according to Sara Fisher at Axios.
At the very least, Dr. Seuss Enterprises is talking with bankers about estimating the valuation of the Seuss properties in the current market place, a customary preparatory step toward a sale.
In the parlance, Seuss, like Horton, hears a who. As in who might be interested in owning this?
The Seuss canon is among the most famous and lucrative batches of intellectual property on the planet, a deep mine of content that not only sells big in print, but is the basis for countless offshoots in film, TV, theme parks, merchandise and other iterations. It’s as well-known around the globe, perhaps, as the Star Wars franchise.
Earlier this year Axios reported that the Seuss canon had recovered handsomely after a posthumous dip in Geisel’s reputation six years ago after racial stereotypes were identified in some of the books. That revelation sullied the brand, but it has since risen to be the “#1 literary license in the U.S. by print sales, according to data from NPD BookScan.”
And there are treasures yet to be unleashed, too. Seuss Enterprises recently dropped a taste of some unpublished work (see above).
The Seuss brand has grown even more valuable amidst the sizzling competition for content driven by the deep-pocketed streaming media giants like Disney, Amazon, Netflix, etc.
Which one of these fats, might put this cat in their hat, just think about that…
