I’m gonna level with you all. I went out on a bad note. I thought Chapek had his business strategy locked in. Was gonna railroad a lot of divisions and do unpopular stuff.
Turns out Bob Iger outsmarted him on the board and get sacked before the real damage was done.
I can tell you guys that Disney is way worse off than it was when I ducked out and said to hell with the internet
@wdwmagic can I swear here? Always a potty mouth.
Occasionally I will be dropping some musings and rumormongering. I pop in, post some stuff, and don’t care about most replies. Take it or leave it when I ramble.
Here’s one thing I want to highlight: Disney is broke guys. They are really having issues keeping funding going just to keep the parks running at any sort of acceptable standard. And we know Disney has several billion in cash! The money can and should be made available. But if they draw down their cash, they close off other options to get their act together. And they need these margins off theme parks. Theme parks have subsided media company screw ups for decades guys. It even happens at Universal!
Be back soon!
Hello,
@pheneix.
I don't know about the insider knowledge about what may or may not be built in the parks, but I do know that everything you've revealed with regard to Disney finances is not inside information, because it's all public knowledge. And Disney talks about it publicly. And we've been discussing it in these forums.
The $9B dollars that Disney had cash on hand grew to $14B. Of course, that was before paying Comcast $9B to take complete ownership of Hulu. Disney may have to pay a few billion more depending on how Hulu's worth is evaluated. But Disney still has a cushion.
In your financial analysis and hearing from insiders, has there been any reckoning that:
- Disney's revenue from Hulu will now be 50% more from being the sole owner?
- That Disney+ will be in the black this fiscal year?
- That Disney's merger of Hulu and D+ will increase the bundle synergy?
- That the ad-supported tier of D+ in Europe is only now rolling out and will bring in more income?
- The $7B in savings from all the recent lay-offs?
For Disney, having *only* a few Billion dollars on hand is indeed 'tight' for a company Disney's size, but they also have access to lines of credit for billions more, if needed.
But, because cash on hand is tight, that is why Disney isn't spending the promised $60B in the parks now. And why they said the majority of the $60B will be in the back half of the coming decade. And that's why Disney hasn't been "responding" to Epic Universe. They don't have the massive cash on hand that they usually do.
Of course, Disney *could* borrow, and put itself in $100B debt like Comcast is in. (And people wonder why swaths of land in their parks are sitting idle.)
ESPN is problematic, because, as has been discussed here, Apple and Amazon can drop a nearly unlimited amount of cash (way too much as you rightfully point out) and shut-out Disney and other streamers for sports rights. That's why Disney is looking for sports-partners to alleviate that sports apocalypse.
Yeah, Disney's finances are on a tight margin now. But that's to ensure Disney has a future in home entertainment once linear is dead. I, like others, would love new attractions in the parks. But I understand Disney has to nail down the home entertainment market, which, when it was all-linear, brought in huge amounts of revenue. And that required a big investment (but maybe not a $1.5B quarterly loss under Chapek investment).
