From January to May 2026 the store where BAM’s franchisees buy new LEGO and branded goods took in $3.7 million, more than BAM’s royalties, and kept about $110,000 of it. In the first three months of 2025 it kept 25.6 cents of each dollar. The fees franchisees pay made 95.7 percent of BAM’s gross profit.
PRIMARY SOURCEBAM’s own management reports for January to March 2025 and January to May 2026, Exhibit H to its franchise disclosure documents.
CONFIRMEDFrom January to May 2026, sales through the corporate store, $3,718,443.55, were BAM’s largest line of income. Royalties were $3,145,805.42.
CONFIRMEDOf each dollar of store sales, BAM kept 3.0 cents once it paid for the goods, the payouts, freight and card fees and counted the shipping it charged franchisees. From January to March 2025 it kept 25.6 cents.
CONFIRMEDRoyalties, franchise sales, the advertising fund and technology fees made 95.7 percent of BAM’s gross profit from January to May 2026. The store made 2.0 percent, $109,823.85, less than the $125,781.96 BAM booked from sponsors.
Where BAM’s gross profit came from · January to May 2026
The biggest source of income is the smallest source of profit
Fees carry no cost of goods. The store’s bar is what was left of $3.7 million in sales.
The store brought in 40.6 percent of the money BAM took in, and 2.0 percent of its gross profit.
BAM has made its corporate store the place its franchisees buy new LEGO. It keeps about 3 cents of each dollar the store takes in, and makes almost all of its profit somewhere else: from the fees the same franchisees pay.
Where BAM’s franchisees buy branded goods and, since 2025, new LEGO.
BAM’s corporate store is a wholesale web shop on Shopify. Since BAM closed it to visitors, only accounts BAM registers as “B2B” customers can buy there, and the customers it registers are franchisees. The operations manual sends every owner there for branded goods and bulk buys. By a franchisee’s account, since the spring of 2025 it has also been where they buy new LEGO (September 2).
Some of what the store sells belongs to other sellers. Before BAM closed the store to visitors, 63 percent of its catalog carried the vendor tags of two franchise stores, and BAM’s ledger books what it passes on to sellers as “PassThrough Inventory Payouts.” BAM’s disclosure document tells prospective owners that BAM is “an approved supplier, but not the only approved supplier, of certain inventory for your Store.” When an owner asked at BAM’s Q3 town hall to choose a LEGO supplier again, the answer was none (September 2).
BAM’s own management reports give the store’s size. In the first three months of 2025 it took in about $200,000 a month, a little less than BAM’s royalties. From January to May 2026 it took in about $744,000 a month, $3.7 million in all, against $3.1 million in royalties. It is now BAM’s largest line of income.
Nearly every dollar went back out.
The corporate store · January to May 2026
How $3.7 million in sales became $110,000
The goods BAM sold cost it $2.84 million. Another $563,000 went to other sellers for their goods. Freight and warehousing cost $269,000, almost four times the $70,000 BAM charged franchisees for shipping. Card fees took $7,000. That left $110,000, before BAM paid its own staff.
INFERENCECharged with the pay of BAM’s product and logistics department, the store lost money from January to May 2026.
BAM’s ledger has a product and logistics department. From January to May 2026 BAM paid its product and logistics department $164,000 in wages and contractor fees, more than the store kept. In the first three months of 2025 the product department’s wages were $65,000, less than the $153,000 the store kept then. Set against that pay, the store went from about $89,000 ahead to about $55,000 behind, before payroll taxes, rent or software.
Franchisees now pay BAM close to what BAM pays for the goods.
Each dollar of store sales, in cents
The goods went from 29.5 cents of each dollar to 76.4
Two things changed. The first is what the store sells. In the first three months of 2025, 37.6 cents of each dollar went to other sellers. BAM sold their goods for them without buying the stock; what it keeps on those sales is not disclosed (September 2). In 2026 it was 15.2 cents, and the goods BAM bought itself took 76.4.
The second is the margin. After the goods and the payouts, the store had 32.9 cents of each dollar left in early 2025 and 8.5 in 2026. Freight and card fees, less the shipping BAM charged, took 5.5 of those 8.5 cents. BAM kept 3.
A month in 2026, against a month in early 2025 set at 100
Sales nearly quadrupled. What the store kept fell by more than half.
BAM’s stock and its debts grew together.
Payment is required at the time you place your order, including items that are listed as “preorder.”
The store’s money
Who orders, who holds the stock, who holds the debt
Hillcrest Bank’s lien was filed in February 2026. By May 31, BAM owed it $378,884.70 (October 15).
| BAM’s balance sheet | March 31, 2025 | May 31, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory | $662,096.43 | $1,553,998.99 |
| Owed to vendors | $223,027.72 | $696,102.59 |
| Credit lines | $184,821.46 | $568,188.43 |
To sell more, BAM carries more. In fourteen months its inventory more than doubled, what it owed vendors tripled, and its credit lines went from one to three. The franchisees’ supply of new sets runs through that balance sheet, and the manual makes each order the owner’s “to pay in full”: a preorder cannot be changed or cancelled (July 31).
At BAM’s Q3 town hall, Paul Hardcastle, its director of product and logistics, said of the warehouse behind the store: “August was a disaster and, and, and I own that.” A franchisee’s question, read aloud there, asked: “Does corporate have the capability to float future orders or are we doomed when some stores cannot pay on time?” (September 2).
The cover of BAM’s 2026 disclosure document carries the warning certain states require, that its financial condition “calls into question the franchisor’s financial ability to provide services and support you” (September 2).
BAM carries the stock. The bank holds the lien.
From the franchisees, but not from selling to them.
Royalties, franchise sales, the advertising fund and technology fees made $5.25 million of BAM’s $5.49 million in gross profit from January to May 2026, or 95.7 percent. Selling franchises alone made nearly 11 times what the store kept. The advertising fund, 1 percent of franchisees’ sales (September 1), is booked as $503,000 of BAM’s income, more than four times what the store kept, though the disclosure document says its money is accounted for separately and will not pay BAM’s general operating expenses. Technology fees, a line the early 2025 report does not have, came to $412,000, of which $131,000 is booked as “Prior Year Technology Fee Income.”
On a set a franchisee resells, BAM is paid twice: once when it sells the franchisee the set, and again when the franchisee sells it. On the product card a franchisee supplied, BAM priced the set to franchisees at 81.6 percent of the list price (September 2).
One set with a $100 list price
The royalty alone is 2.5 times what BAM keeps selling the set
The fair reading, and its limit. A wholesaler’s margin is thin by nature, and a franchisee who buys from BAM near BAM’s cost keeps more of each sale. An anonymous franchisee, in a written answer read on Collecting Weekly on August 16, 2026, said most Star Wars sets carried margins of 11 to 19 percent bought from ToyHouse, the old distributor, and carry 18 to 24 percent bought through BAM’s store (September 2). By its own count BAM grew from 154 to 217 franchise stores in 2025, and supplying that many takes stock and credit. The reports are unaudited and prepared for management; the early 2025 one books $82,064.31 as “MISC TO FIX,” and a cost booked in one month can belong to another. None of that changes the ledger: the business that now brings BAM the most money makes it the least, while its stock and its debts grew, at a company whose own disclosure document questions its ability to support the stores that depend on that stock.
Sources. BAM Franchising, Inc., Management Report, Profit and Loss, January to March 2025, and Balance Sheet as of March 31, 2025, Exhibit H to its 2025 franchise disclosure document, Minnesota Department of Commerce file 9006, document 33584-202504-15. BAM Franchising, Inc., Management Report for the period ended May 31, 2026, prepared July 22, 2026, Exhibit H to its post-effective amendment received September 10, 2026, Minnesota file 9006, document 37254-202609-02 (the Minnesota file). BAM’s 2026 disclosure document, Items 6, 8, 11 and 20 and the state cover page (the disclosure document). Bricks & Minifigs Operations Manual, §12.8. The corporate store, its catalog, the town hall and the product card (September 2). The advertising fund (September 1). The Hillcrest lien (October 15). The figures, line by line (CSV). The right of reply is open to everyone named here.