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Price tags · Puzzle #30 · Thursday, October 29

Price tags: the answers

Four questions, each with one true number. Here they are with their answers, how to reason each one out, and where the number comes from. Play today's Price tags.

  1. 1. A day at Papa Johns: How much did an average company-owned Papa Johns in the US sell on a typical day in 2025?

    Photo: Nenad Stojkovic from Srbija, CC BY 2.0
    Counts
    Delivery and carryout

    The answer: about $3,600. Papa Johns' franchised North American restaurants averaged a bit less, $1.1 million each.

    Napkin math
    1. 150orders a day
    2. ×$25an order

    ≈$3,750

    The true figure is about $3,600 (Papa John's International). Without looking anything up, take 150 orders a day, times $25 an order, and you get about $3,800. The estimate is 1.1 times too high, close enough to score 9.8 out of 10. The target is wider than it looks: every guess between $1,800 and $7,100 scores at least 7.0.

    Source: Papa John's International (SEC Form 10-K), Papa John's Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025

  2. 2. Toys in America: How big was the whole US toy market in 2025, according to Circana?

    Photo: OttawaAC, CC BY-SA 3.0
    Top toy brand
    Pokémon

    The answer: about $45.6 billion. Pokémon alone sold $2.5 billion in the US, up 87% in a year.

    Napkin math
    1. 130Mhouseholds in the US
    2. ×$300each a year on toys and games

    ≈$39B

    The answer comes to about $45.6 billion (The Toy Association). To reason it out, take 130 million households in the US, times $300 each a year on toys and games, and you get about $39 billion. That comes out 1.2 times too low, and a guess that far off still scores 9.3 out of 10. The target is wider than it looks: every guess between $23 billion and $91 billion scores at least 7.0.

    Source: The Toy Association, U.S. Sales Data

  3. 3. Lucasfilm: How much did Disney agree to pay George Lucas for Lucasfilm in 2012?

    Photo: The Conmunity - Pop Culture Geek from Los Angeles, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0
    Bought by
    Disney, October 2012
    Star Wars box office
    $4.4 billion worldwide to date
    Also included
    Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound

    The answer: $4.05 billion. Disney paid about half in cash and half in stock, and announced a new Star Wars film for 2015.

    Napkin math: Star Wars had earned $4.4 billion at the box office over 35 years; a buyer paying roughly that much for the future of the franchise is a reasonable guess.

    The real answer is $4.05 billion (The Walt Disney Company press release). There's no tidy chain of numbers for this one, so the skill is a sense of scale: the answer is in the billions. Because only the ratio counts, anything between $2 billion and $8.1 billion was worth 7.0 or more.

    Source: The Walt Disney Company press release (SEC Form 8-K exhibit), Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

  4. 4. An hour at Starbucks: How much did Starbucks take in, worldwide, in an average hour of its 2025 fiscal year?

    Photo: Fumikas Sagisavas, CC BY-SA 4.0
    Fiscal year
    52 weeks ending September 28, 2025
    Counts
    Consolidated net revenues, worldwide

    The answer: about $4.3 million. Starbucks' net revenues rose 3% in fiscal 2025, to $37.2 billion.

    Napkin math
    1. 40kstores worldwide
    2. ×500customers each a day
    3. ×$6a drink
    4. ÷24hours in a day

    ≈$5M

    The answer comes to about $4.3 million (Starbucks Corporation). To reason it out, take 40,000 stores worldwide, times 500 customers each a day, times $6 a drink, divided by 24 hours in a day, and you get about $5 million. That comes out 1.2 times too high, and a guess that far off still scores 9.3 out of 10. Because only the ratio counts, anything between $2.1 million and $8.5 million was worth 7.0 or more.

    Source: Starbucks Corporation (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), Starbucks Reports Q4 and Full Fiscal Year 2025 Results

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