Neither matters, You are assuming that individual franchises are successful because Starkbucks as a whole is successful, which is not the case, Starbucks collects their royalties regardless of whatever happens to the individual franchise. Most are just earning a living, buying a franchise is basically buying yourself a job. In the early 90's the fastest growing franchise was Subway Subs, bought a franchise, attended their Sub-college and built my store. About 6 months in, I started thinking to myself that I can earn the same amount of money I'm earning now without parting with the 90K it cost me to build my store, and without dealing with the BS from head office.(head office back then was a different pain in the ass)
At the same time, there were many newspaper articles etc. on how Subway is the fastest growing franchise, Subway has more locations than McDonalds, Fred DeLuca , owner of Subway, is a genius, etc, etc. Just like you are doing now, people were assuming that just because Fred and Subway as a whole was doing amazing, that individual franchises were doing amazing, which was not the case, individual franchisee were making a living, some were earning less than when they were working for someone else, some went bankrupt. Only about 2 percent were actually making good income and that was because of their location, but not every store can have the perfect location. iIknow this for a fact cause we had regular franchise gatherings where one can meet and talk with other franchisees and exchange ideas.
So you said you would run those odds and open a Starbucks franchise? I read in another post that something about you attending law school, I'm assuming that you are a practicing lawyer? Do you plan on leaving your position as a lawyer and serving coffee? or will you hire someone to run your store while you have no idea what's actually happening in your store and piss away your minimal profits on your manager? Personally if I had a law degree, I wouldn't take a step backwards and open a franchise, instead I would invest my money to opening my own practice, if I already had my own practice I would still invest my money in my own practice where I have some control of what's happening in a business I know and understand.
You should go talk to some Starbucks Franchisees, I'm sure there are some franchises that are earning a very good living, but with 20K locations already, don't bank on getting a prime location, all of those have already been taken. I bet once you get the first hand information from the franchisee as apposed to 20,000 stores equals acceptable odds for success, you won't run the odds. Like I said, your numbers are misleading you.