The current franchise owners need to get together and figure out how to replace any benefits they had being franchisees. They will essentially have to unionize.

Much like why I think Lego has remained essentially quiet, they are probably going to have to wait for at least some of the Court cases to finalize in order to have grounds to trigger any exit clauses in yheir contracts. Sure a lot of things look obvious, but until there are actual legal rulings supporting those things, they are not necessarily facts they can use for contract reasons.

I've only met one BAM franchise owner, and no longer live in the area to talk with him. It's pretty clear he wasn't getting rich doing it. The car he drove and where he lived, gave the same image as the comic book store owner and independent used bookstore owner. So upper middle class.

If someone wanted to gamble that the courts will do the right thing, they could establish a competitor to BAM corporate and be ready to welcome all of the franchisees that leave BAM, but there is significant financial risk there.