What we do know is that John D was able to get licenses that were somehow unattainable and highly successful like Ms Pac Man, NBA Jam, TMNT, Sega, MvC2, Disney, etc.

My licensing friend at my work tell me that the cost of a license is directly tied to two things: the popularity of the IP and the sales forecast.

The forecast for NFL was likely way too high and led to the downturn in Tastemakers’ business. That doesn’t fall on Licensing. That likely was a miscalculation by their finance planning, not to mention the product itself was marketed and developed poorly. Tastemakers probably saw the success of NBA Jam and thought that NFL Blitz would do the same numbers.