Game Theory - Mario Kart World is Going BANKRUPT?!

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Is Mario Kart World actually going BANKRUPT? The world is full of advertisements plastered on barricades, billboards, and banners in every single corner. It honestly had us wondering…do they need all of these businesses to keep the economy going? And which businesses are bringing in the most coins? That’s what we’re going to be solving in today’s episode!

Mario Kart World is about to go bankrupt. No, not the game, although if they keep trying to sell it for a ridiculous $80, then maybe. I'm talking about the world of Mario Kart World. Because as it turns out, this little go-karting extravaganza is creating a massive bubble for the Mushroom Kingdom, and one small pop will send the whole world economy into free fall. Hello, Internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's ready to fire up its engines, after waiting for more than 11 years, we finally have ourselves a new Mario Kart game.

And from the very moment I saw the first trailer for Mario Kart World, I knew I had to do an episode on it. But in true game theory fashion, while everyone else has been clamoring over the open world, the diverse courses, and the ever-important inclusion of Cow, it was something else that really got my motor running, the economy. Surprise, surprise, the high school nerd is more interested in math than motorsports. But it's kind of hard to ignore. I mean, have you looked around the courses? Plastered on barricades, billboards, and banners of every single corner of this

carting-themed world are advertisements. Fortunately, we haven't quite reached Call of Duty levels with real companies advertising in game. Instead, these are in-universe companies. Things like Grohl Metal, Cooper Construction, and Dolphin Marine Sports. Obviously, many of these companies are named after Mario characters, both the iconic and the not so iconic. Heck, even Batterden has his own Aero Parts company. You remember Batterden, right? The Mo-eye-looking enemy from Super Mario Land? Who could forget? But clearly, when the Mario

characters are not bumping cards and hosting parties, they're being successful entrepreneurs. But Mario Kart is a competition, after all. So it got me thinking, who is the best of these business people? What if we took the businesses being advertised in Mario Kart world and compared them. Who is actually bringing in the most coin? A simple question, I thought, a way to whip up some spreadsheets and do some calculations about one of my favorite Nintendo franchises. What could possibly go wrong? Well, tens of hours and over 100 companies later, I did end up getting my answer, but in doing so, I found something else that I didn't expect. The world of Mario Kart World is about to experience an economic calamity, and not the Ganon kind. Although Link is in this series

now, and so I suppose they could add him to. me theorists, this is going to be a wild ride. So, fasten those seat belts and put the pedal to the medal because the economics of Mario Cart World start in three, two, one, go. I started by gathering a list of every single company that advertises itself somewhere in the wide world of Mario Kart world. That meant playing a lot of Mario Kart and losing a lot of Mario Kart because GoFiguer, the other racers didn't want to stop and wait for the guy staring at signs.

But I noted down everyone I could see and It turns out, there's a lot more than I bargained for. This game has 130 companies advertised throughout the various tracks. Some of them are pretty generic, like fried chicken, too much flavor, which is the most santi-sounding business I have ever heard. Or they're branded around Mario items. And while companies like banana natural oil are no doubt important to the economy in this universe, it's not going to help us figure out which character is winning the battle of the businesses.

Donkey Kong may have a lot of them, but he doesn't have a monopoly on bananas. Although, even excluding those, we still end up having a list that's 118 companies long, but this is where we really begin to start heading down the Monti-Mole hole. We may have all the names of the businesses owned by our colorful cast of characters, but we still have no idea how much they actually make. And since Shigeru-Miyomoto did not respond to my request for the Q4 earnings reports for all of these companies, I guess I'm going to have to get creative here. You see, these may be fictional businesses,

but the products they're promoting do reflect products and service, that we see in the real world. So, we just need to find equivalent companies in the real world and use that company's financials in place of the Mario version. Specifically, let's take a look at the company's annual revenue, the amount they make before taxes and expenses. Also, unless it's clear that this fictional company is really small, it's probably best that we assume the equivalent companies are the largest in the world.

Yoshi's Hamburg is being equivalent to something like McDonald's with a bunch of global locations. You know, because this is Mario Kart's world, after all. You not only have to be big enough to advertise, but also have a global audience. No point advertising your local pizza joint to a bunch of people in a foreign land. Plus, if multiple companies all occupy the same industry, like the not one, not two, but three different courier companies that exist in the Mario Kart world, rather than arbitrarily trying to assign each one to a specific company as if one is better than the other, which is data we just don't have,

we can just average a couple of the real world industry leaders and assign the same value to all. all of the Mario corporations. So with all the rules out of the way, let's finally find out which of our favorite characters is the true wolf of Wall Luigi Street. That was a bad one. And who better to start us off than Mr. Jumpman himself, Mario. It is his name on the box, or the virtual game card.

Anyway, I thought that would make figuring out his financial status the easiest, but Mario actually has some pretty diverse business dealings. If we take a look at the ads around the track, we can see five companies that bear the iconic plumber's name. The first, long-time fans of Mario Kart should recognize. And that's Mario Kart TV.

The media company that's responsible for filming and broadcasting all of the carting shenanigans. The closest IRL equivalent to that would be something like ESPN, the US-based sports channel that airs Formula One. And they have an annual revenue of approximately $16 billion. As you can see, we're not dealing in the minor leagues here. These guys are playing with some serious. cash. But that's just Mario's first business. He also has not one, but two racetracks under his plumber belt, Mario Circuit and Mario Bros. Circuit. And before you say a racetrack, that's not a

business, tell that to Silverstone, the racetrack that hosts Formula One's British Grand Prix, which brings in an annual revenue of over $129 million. And speaking of the Mario Bros, there is an official Mario Bros company in game as well. It's not particularly clear what, But exactly this business does. But considering that the logo looks just like the original video game, back when our boys were just humble plumbers clearing out pipes, I think it's safe to assume that just like in the Mario movie, this is their plumbing business. But given that they're so busy these days, saving princesses, going go-karting and hosting parties

that are totally not rigged, they'll likely have had to grow the business so that they can continue serving the international market that desperately wants to have their pipes cleaned by the famous brothers. Stop it. The biggest plumbing business in the world is a company called Roto Ruta, and their 2024 reports tell us that they have an annual income of $700 million. Of course, Mario is probably going to have to split the Mario Bro circuit and business with Luigi, but right off the bat, Mario's portfolio is already looking strong, with $16.5 billion

in annual revenue. But Mario Jumpman Mario has one more trick up his scarlet sleeves. Mario Motors. Because there are four other motoring businesses. in the Mario Kart world, we can just take the top five motoring companies in the world, Volkswagen, Toyota, General Motors, Ford and Mercedes, and average their annual revenue out to a whopping $236 billion, $580 million, bringing Mario's grand total to just over $253 billion.

Ha! Take that bro in your pitiful little 500-mill mansion! But maybe Luigi has taken that nice starting amount of cash and gold bars and invested it back into the market? No, not really. Other than the two companies he shares with his brother, Luigi only has one other company that we know of. Luigi Tires.

And while the likely comparison here is Michelin with an annual revenue of 28.29 billion, his grand total is still painfully small compared to his brother. Needless to say, Mario may be a jerk, but Luigi isn't helping himself on the brain's front. The rest of the Mario cast very wildly in their numbers. Daisy, with her air freshener business and shared patissory with Peach, only sits at 1.5 billion.

Yoshi hits $26 billion with Yoshi's hamburgers, and Toad stands at a cool $65 billion. Of course, much like in the real world, not all of these businesses are on the up and up. Case and point, the meme lord, that is, Waluigi. While Waluigi's vintage clothing business appears legitimate, and snazzy, if I do say so myself, his other business is less so.

Wauigi tires appears to just be taking Luigi tires and slapping a big old, wha! On the front of the name. Hilarious, but definitely illegal. Sorry, Wah, I love your memes, but I love Mathmore and I can't accept thievery. D.K. also falls a little short, only making 13 billion a year with his various tracks and rocket booster businesses. I guess being a spacefaring multi-billionaire doesn't do much for you in the Mario world. Although that's probably for the best.

On the flip side, Pete, Bowser and Rosalina are also in the car business, and thanks to Peach's movie career, resorts, stadiums, petisserie, Bowser's castle track, and Rosalina's bus tours, they all just... barely miss out on being part of the quarter trilly club behind our boy Mario. However, you may be shocked to learn that actually none of these characters are sitting atop the entrepreneurial podium. Yep, even Mario with his 253 billion doesn't even scratch third place. So, who does? Well, second and third actually came as a bit of a surprise because they aren't part of our more famous group. These two obscure characters only have one business each. But those companies, to use a car metaphor, are lapping the fields. The number three overall business person and number three overall company is everyone's

favourite money bag, literally coin coffer. Coin coffer bank is seemingly the only bank in the Mario Kart world, and so it's only right to compare it to our own international financial giant J.P. Morgan Chase, whose annual revenue is $278.9 billion a year. And the second largest company in all of Mario Kart world, with an estimate of a The automated revenue of $329 billion belongs to the most memorable character in all of Mario Hotfoot. Yeah, you guys know Hotfoot, right?

The little flamed by that jumped from the candles in Mario Bros 3. Well, I guess he was able to take the royalties he made from that game to make Hotfoot gasoline, the ExxonMobil of this. Check notes. Carta Wild. If only he'd invested in one more business. Then his single business wouldn't have lost to the man who stands tall at the top of the leaderboard, 10 feet tall to be exactly. To be exact, it is of course, Wario.

Because when you think of money in Mario, who else is going to come to mind? Unlike Luigi who's just sitting on all of his wealth, Wario is making money moves. Not only do his companies generate more revenue than most other characters, he's also diversified and has the most companies of anyone at 7. Wario, more like Warren Buffett. He's got his own car business, a completely separate engine company similar to something like Cummings or Yanmar, a career service like DHL, UPS or FedEx, a scrap metal gig like Sims Metal and two racetracks, one of which is a stadium that can double up as the host of the

Twiller Swift Eres Tour. He even has a gaming company, Wario Games, and those little bouncing noses remind me of a certain spin-off series, Wario Ware. Intelligent Systems is the company that makes those games for Nintendo, alongside Paper Mario and Fire Emblem, so their numbers are what we're going to use. It's not the most lucrative of the businesses, but hey, maybe he just loves Wafus. Anyway, when added up, Wario's business empire has an estimated annual revenue of... Drumroll, please!

$356 billion. There is technically one single business that actually trumps even Wario by a country mile. Fire Mart, which seems to be this world's version of Walmart, which would then give it an annual revenue of $650 billion, just not its own. But the Fireflower isn't a character, it's an item, and so it doesn't. doesn't count. And therefore, Wario is our winner and the most entrepreneurial of our characters. Obviously, there are way more characters that dove headfirst into the sushi tank, 53 to be precise. But sadly, we'd be here all day if I just listed them out. And while I'm sure penguins are someone's

favourite, penguin bobsledding is not a lucrative business venture, making at best 260K in revenue. However, while they may not match up to the likes of Wario on their own, what about if you counted them all together. After all, it's not just the individuals that benefit from all this revenue, the countries and kingdoms they reside in get to make a pretty penny by charging them tax, meaning those 53 loose ends alongside our regular gang all add up at the end of the day. And the winner there would be a pretty incredible economic superpower, you know, providing these businesses actually pay their taxes. So let's take all the companies we've talked about today, from Mario Motors to Magmar Diner,

as well as a few of the others we disqualified earlier, to get a sense of which kingdom has the most entrepreneurial spirit. For example, I mentioned earlier that it's not clear which character might own a company like banana natural oil, but it is pretty clear that this company is likely headquartered in D.K.'s homeland, the jungle kingdom. So it only seems fair that banana natural oil and its estimated $8 billion in revenue should fall under the domain of the jungle kingdom as well. Once again, at the very bottom of our list is sadly Daisy Saraceland. Yeah, remember when Daisy had our own kingdom and wasn't just for, hanging out to play doubles with Beach.

With Daisy and Batterton being the only Saracens with businesses that we know of, collectively, they only just managed to bring in $40 billion per year. Next up is the Jungle Kingdom, where cranky subjects bring in an estimated $68.5 billion. Number three, and the first on our podium is Rosalina. While it's never really clear she has a kingdom to call her own, she's got a crown, so I think it counts. In total, her are the Lumas, mostly on the back of Rosalina automobiles, bring in just over 237 billion per year.

And that brings us to our top two kingdoms, which deep down I'm sure we already expected would be here. Peach's Mushroom Kingdom and the infamous Bowser's Kingdom. But there's only one nation that can truly dominate the world of finance, and that nation is, second drum roll please. The Mushroom Kingdom. All right, I know that may not feel like that big of a shock, but it is when you realize that the Mushroom Kingdom's nearly $2.1 trillion comes from just 13 entrepreneurs compared to Bowser's 33. Although, it's really the item-branded shops like One-Ups,

mushrooms and superstars that do the heavy lifting. Without those, the Mushroom Kingdom was sitting at just 600 billion, just a third of Bowser's 1.8 trillion. Maybe that's the real reason Bowser keeps invading. It's not that he wants to marry Peach or that he's fed up of losing to Mario. he's fed up of losing the economic game. However, he might want to rethink that little strategy because clearly he hasn't seen the writing on the wall. The shadow looming over all the companies of the Mario Car World. You see, this whole theory started because of the sheer number of ads

lasted around the world. And ads say cost money. And these ads cost serious money. Formula One is one of the biggest motorsports in the world. Like Mario Kart World, F1 bounces around the globe putting on races for a global audience. And along the track, on billboards and on the cars, you'll see ads just like we see in Mario Kart World. According to one estimate, those ads for billboards and barriers can cost companies $1 to $5 million per race. And ads on the cars themselves, like the kind we see for Dory and her Watercraft company, can cost between $1 and $70 million per year.

And for that low end, all you're getting is a little decal that no one is ever going to see at that speed. And sure, while the big companies like Mario Motors, Hot Foot Gasoline and Coin Coffa Bank can probably afford to dish out the dough, how can Penguin Bob Sled, Captain To's Treasure Tracker or Foo's handy air duster, justify spending that kind of cash? Can one multi-million dollar billboard or car ad really lead to an increase in sales for Spike Spokes? And on top of that, most of these companies are probably already operating on such tight margins as it is. For today's example, we focused on revenue. The amount of money a company brings in each year. But that doesn't include a company's expenses, taxes, payroll, rent, and yes, advertising. For example, take Firemart. As a supermarket, it's already operating on a profit margin of only

1 to 3% of its revenue. So for every $100 it makes in sales, it's only bringing home $1 to $3 in actual profit. And if you cut into that by purchasing a billboard alongside, oh, I don't know, the world's largest go-carting tournament, putting your company's financial future at risk. If you want a real world example, look at what happened to Pets.com. Pets.com was an e-commerce business that used to deliver pet supplies back in the late 90s. They, like many of our Mario Kart businesses, wanted to get their name out there. And so, they decided to spend big bucks on a bunch of high-profile marketing campaigns.

They had a float in the 1999 Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. And they even bought air time during Super Bowl 34 in 2000. The only problem, despite being seen by tens of... of millions of people, they were never able to turn that exposure into actual dollars. And Pets.com shut down just nine months after releasing their Super Bowl ad. Do you see where I'm going with this? Much like Nintendo, every single one of these fictional companies has tied their bitty-buggies to the success of Mario Kart World.

And they need it to be a big hit. They've thrown their money into these expensive ads with no promise that they'll ever get any sort of return on that investment. If Mario Kart World is not as successful as they're, they'll get to be a successful as they hoped, or if they just simply can't convert the eyeballs into serious coin, the Mario Cart world will see wave after wave of businesses going under. And what's worse, this isn't even a new issue. You can actually see it if you look back at older Mario Kart games.

They are filled with companies that used to advertise in Mario Kart, but who have since stopped, presumably because they didn't make it. This has been an issue in the Mario Kart world for years, and yet nothing has been done to stop And a lot of these businesses are now going to be faced with shuttering their doors because of it, which will cause a cascade of economic despair for ordinary citizens of that universe. Meanwhile, the big corporations like Bowser Motors, Wario Stadium and Mario Kart TV, who have benefited from the success of this global carting phenomenon, will be sitting pretty on top of the podium. But hey, that's just a theory.

A game theory! Thanks for watching.