Author and entrepreneur, Edward J. Gracia, has years of experience in the licensing industry. At the age of 23, he started a company known as Loud Lenses, which produces novelty eyewear with images on the lenses.

Later that year with sales going well, he attended a licensing convention in Las Vegas and from that day he was convinced licensing was the way to go for his eyewear. This sent him on a never ending journey to soak up all the knowledge he could about licensing.

As a kid Gracia had always collected sports memorabilia, just like most kids his age. But unlike most kids, Gracia had the obsessive habit of learning everything he could about his hobbies. Years later, with this love of sports memorabilia combined with his years of successful entrepreneurism, Gracia dove head first into the world of sports licensing.

His first successful attempt was with college licensing. After working with several smaller universities in his area, he decided to move on to the big leagues. Today, after working with dozens of other companies and entrepreneurs, Gracia has a portfolio that has been expanded past simply fun eyewear.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

"When I first started I read books on licensing, I read articles on licensing. I went to sleep watching online videos about licensing. I soaked everything in. I found out very quickly that I didn't have the money to pay big companies like Disney, or Mattel, the huge advances that they asked for." recalls Edward when explaining his strategy. "I read that the NCAA was less regulated and they didn't require the huge advances. So it was a no brainer, especially since I was in college that year."

"But one problem I ran into was that there was barely any information on SPORTS licensing. Sure you can find entire magazines dedicated to licensing itself, but none of them focus on sports licensing."

"When I tried to call the different leagues to learn more about licensing with them, they brushed me aside and referred me to websites, emails, or voice-messages! I didn't understand... Here I was trying to partner up with the leagues, trying to put money in their pockets, but they did not want to deal with me!"

Later when he tried to get licensing information online, Gracia explained "Go ahead, right now, and try to find out some basic information like royalty %'s for the leagues or annual guarant