You can't. 'Fan' and 'customer' are different words. And the fans are of 'D&D' not the TTRPG. You confused them before, and you're confusing them again.
You can't.
You can't.
Because you've returned to this narrative more than once--85M D&D fans are not 85M TTRPG D&D players, and certainly not 85M customers. They are people who have interacted with the brand, and that includes movies, colouring books, plushies, novels, all sorts of things.
These flights-of-fancy conjectural mathematical trains of thought you keep posting are, I'm afraid, not credible. They're based on an incorrect premise.
You are thinking like someone who is a player...not the board members. Consoles are a prime example....though no one made the connection previously.
Xbox sold somewhere around 60 million xbox ones. Now, a LOT of those are actually not used. In fact, over half of them are probably not used on a daily basis, and some...not even on a weekly basis. In fact, most xbox owners play less than 200 hours on their console each year.
How many people have owned an xbox over the years...probably MORE than 60 million...but 60 million is a convenient number to utilize in the example.
So, how does Xbox make money?
They sell games...right? (sort of like how D&D sells supplements). Of course, no game is going to sell as well as the base Xbox. Less then 1/10th of xbox console owners buy any one game, in fact, most xbox games released get even 5% of the xbox console base to buy them (in which case, we may say that D&D might have a better attach rate for PHB's to supplements than Xbox does for most of the games released for it).
So...where does the money come from?
The Xbox division made 15 billion last year according to some numbers reported. Let's take just 1/10th of that...and that would be impressive for D&D.
One reason to recruit Microsoft execs to WotC is because they are very good at monetizing the brand in some ways. Some of the things being done may be able to be seen as direct parallels.
One way Xbox and Microsoft have expanded is by expanding access to those beyond just the xbox audience. Another way is via subscription with game pass.
You think Xbox is only concerned with those who OWN the current Xbox series X or S that is on sale?
No, they are looking far beyond that.
If one is counted as a fan, a player or whatever, that's a number that can be exploited. A business owner may be interested in what is the current customer base.
An investor that wants to exploit something, looks at what CAN be...rather than what is. Whether it is 85 million fans, or 85 million players...those are BIG numbers, and even if someone is merely a fan...there is surely a way to exploit that.
The OGL situation that arose awhile back didn't come about simply because they were looking at who the people who bought the PHB were...in fact...the players weren't even really what they were looking at in that situation. They were looking at other numbers...the extended base as one would put it. That extended base of fans, users, or simply those who were aware of it is far larger and far more tempting to get money from than simply those who are currently going to their FLGS or other smaller numbers.
