As Comic-Con seeks new business opportunities — like a year-round subscription video-on-demand service in partnership with Lionsgate — will it be able to protect its fans-first image and nonprofit status? Will anything be done with the group’s nest egg which included net assets of about $16.4 million in mid-2013, according to the last publicly available report, and has been growing at perhaps $3 million a year since?

How the organization solves these puzzles could have a ripple effect on Hollywood, which has come to rely on Comic-Con as a major marketing platform, and the city of San Diego, which counts on the annual event to attract other conventions and keep a downtown revitalization moving forward.

Retaining Comic-Con, whose agreement with the local convention center expires next year, is so important that Kevin L. Faulconer, San Diego’s mayor, has been involved in renewal talks. “It’s very important to keep the convention as affordable as possible,” Mr. Faulconer said in an interview, a reference to a renewal sticking point: Many hotels want to curb room discounting during the event, a longtime practice, and begin charging $450 or more a night.

“We think we have offered a competitive package for 2017 and 2018,” said Carol Wallace, chief executive of the agency that oversees the convention center. She declined to provide details. To keep Comic-Con, Ms. Wallace a few years ago began charging the nonprofit a flat $150,000 fee, under a temporary arrangement, or roughly 65 percent less than nondiscounted rent.

The nonprofit that puts on Comic-Con has a longstanding reluctance to discuss its affairs or even, for the most part, to share more than rudimentary details about its leaders. “It has always been about the event, and not about the people who do the event,” said David Glanzer, the group’s director for marketing and public relations.