By Mark Seavy  

Brands will take center stage this week at Brand Licensing Europe (BLE), including licensed properties driving growth across the sports, automobile, and videogame categories.   

The annual show, which will take place at the ExCel exhibition and convention center in London from Oct 7-9, will also include conversations about tariff complications as well as ongoing changes in the film industry as streaming services and YouTube are vying with—and in some cases replacing—tentpole movies in the battle for consumer and retail attention. 

All of these factors are sure to capture the attention of showgoers as they finalize their strategies for 2026. 

Within sports, soccer (known as football in Europe) will be among the licensing trends to watch at BLE.  With FIFA’s World Cup set to arrive in the U.S. next year, Walmart recently partnered with La Liga to expand its foothold in soccer and tap into a growing fanbase in the runup to the tournament. 

As part of the agreement, Walmart will be a “first presenting partner” at La Liga’s “El Clásico,” a rivalry matchup between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid that will debut in Barcelona, Spain on October 26. Walmart’s involvement in soccer will likely be a major boon for the sport in the U.S., where representation with mass retailers has been lacking.  

Soccer also will have a prime position at BLE, where teams like FC Barcelona, Chelsea FC, Manchester City FC, Newcastle United, and Real Madrid CF have taken booth space alongside the Kings League, a seven-a-side league played on a 60-yard field (versus 110 yards for 11-a-side) and founded by former FC Barcelona star Gerard Piqué, who helped spread the format across Europe and the Americas. 

On the videogames side, popular titles that have expanded into content—including Angry Birds, The Last of Us, Pokémon, Minecraft, Super Mario Bros., and Sonic the Hedgehog—will likely be the ones to watch at BLE as the category seeks to strengthen its position in licensing. Sega, Sony PlayStation, Capcom, Ubisoft, Konami Cross Media, and Striker Entertainment (representing Angry Birds) are among those taking booth space at BLE. 

Additionally, auto brands like Ford, Bugatti, Formula 1, and McLaren (represented by CAA Brand Management), Mercedes (via apparel licensee NotJust), and BMW (Brandgenuity) will be at BLE seeking to build on what have been strong sales of licensed goods in the U.S. 

There also will be several brands seeking to launch or significantly expand their business in Europe.  

Consortium Brand Partners’ Draper James (founded by actress Reese Witherspoon) and Jonathan Adler brands have signed on with CAA to expand in Europe. Hasbro is also seeking to extend Magic the Gathering, which has become its first $1-billion brand, as well as Monopoly (the Monopoly Go! mobile game version of which has become a top seller for licensee Savvy Games Group’s Scopely) throughout the region. 

Yet while brands will be in abundance at BLE, the market for them shifted abruptly with the arrival of tariffs earlier this year. In the period following the imposition of U.S. tariffs in April, the European market benefitted as suppliers sought new homes for orders that were cancelled or delayed, industry executives said.  

However, that shift may be a short-term gain as the market stabilizes. 

“It has been [about] ‘Where can we find underdeveloped markets and start dialing them up?’ and that might be India, Africa, and Central Europe,” a licensing agency executive said. “The tariffs forced us to find more business. Europe has become a bit more on the map than it had been because of the tariff disruption. This may be short term because the sheer fan base and decades-long relationship with the U.S. market is not something that can be replicated. But the tariffs were a reason to diversify from a manufacturing base and not just rely on one country for business.”  

With these different factors in mind, European retailers are open to new orders.   

“Bottom line [is that] retailers still want to do deals, so it can’t be that bad and there is always a sense of optimism in business that they will find new partners and people are able to do that,” said Max Arguile, Owner of the agency Reemsborko, which represents Junji Ito, Naruto, and other brands in the U.K.