On layoffs, very bad attendance, and Iger's legacy being one of disgrace

[CaptainAmerica]

Does the quantum math include creative accounting regarding NBA revenue

NBA rights expense more like.

 

[peter11435]

You've said this several times. Google doesn't know everything.

But you do?

How do you explain the contract extension?

 

[Tha Realest]

This is getting juicy would The Chinese government not be interested in fully obtaining Shanghai at least? Don’t they control half of it?

I’m intrigued by what you know

If the PRC wanted more - or all - of Shanghai Disney what’s to stop them from just taking it?

 

[DisneyFanaticUK]

I don't know why these resorts are doing this to themselves.

There has to be a fudge factor built in to their current outlook. In the best case scenario, the parks stay open, take a bit of a financial hit but show they can still operate their business. At least with this approach they can hope for a very slight return to normality late summer/ early Autumn next year (assuming a miracle vaccine is produced and spread).

However, on the other hand, if they voluntarily shut down operations, it'll send out a horrible message to vacationers and they can kiss goodbye to any sort of surge in bookings for 2021, 2022 and so on.

It really is a do or die situation for Disney, Universal and others.

 

[Nubs70]

I've been told the property as a whole is profitable right now, but just, and is improving for the most part.

Some areas are performing better than expected, others are below - particularly EPCOT. This shouldn't really come as a surprise, as the park operated as a park-hop due to its limited headline attractions. All attention is on the Studios for most guests, and of course MK is always a popular choice.

Here is a photo walk around EPCCOT yesterday, around midday. Shots are not designed to emphasize high or low guest numbers, just the view as it happened.

Walk-through of EPCOT July 29 2020

Walk-through of EPCOT July 29 2020

www.wdwmagic.com

Numbers are not in the hundreds, but way below the 10,000+ goal. I'm told some type of attendance driver is being looked at.

If they are profitable at this level of attendance and with margins like that, Scrooge McDuck better put on pants or he is liable to be picked up on an obscenity charge.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

How do you explain the contract extension?

Golden parachute.

 

[peter11435]

Golden parachute.

Lol

Nice conspiracy theory

 

[UNCgolf]

The reasons why and how John Skipper got fired is well documented. Google is your friend.

Yes, I know. I'm not arguing that?

 

[DisneyDebRob]

maybe disney should market the 50th as $50 a day single ticket price, and $50 a night for hotels for a family of four on a 3 or 4 day ticket at value resorts.

Let me please try some of what you are drinking and smoking.

 

[ElvisMickey]

Disney Springs doesn't require navigating thru a compulsory registration system just to go inside. Good to hear they can make a go of it with the world on fire.

When MK reopened, they relentlessly pushed Splash merch on the ebay sellers with no shame. Ppl hauling trash bags of plushes out. Disney knows how bad that looks. They also don't care. The only other high demand merch run I've heard about was the launch of some Disneyland 65th stuff. DL anniversary merch always turns up a crowd. Total crickets at retail other than those eBay Pirate runs.

People are scared. Even the guests coming to WDW are not escaping the real world anymore. They're taking a smoke break from it. And their phones are still getting bombed with bad news. No wonder in park spending is near zero when Disney charges these old economy prices. Disney will have to correct pricing to the new reality. They all will.

I should note that Universal's attendance and guest spending is also garbage. Today, someone tweeted a photo of the Blues Brothers performing for like a family of 3. This is a theme park that has literal hundreds of people inside. More employees than guests for sure. I don't know why these resorts are doing this to themselves.

I took the next 2 days off from work. I live 16 miles from Universal, 30 miles from Disney. Neither resort could give me a hotel rate, as an annual pass holder, that was worth me actually staying at either or, as opposed to driving home. It may not be much, but this is where they need to get a grip with reality. I love staycations. But $150 to stay at Pop Century right now after resort fees with no access to the parks? I have two words for you, and they’re not “Happy Birthday”.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Some areas are performing better than expected, others are below - particularly EPCOT. This shouldn't really come as a surprise, as the park operated as a park-hop due to its limited headline attractions.

But I thought EPCOT was super duper EXTRA popular now thanks to the addition of the BRAND NEW** Frozen ride?

 

[PhotoDave219]

It seems to have been pushed out of the forum's collective consciousness or forgotten, but not too long ago there was that big expose that leaked on here that shook the community. It essentially laid out that many alleged "insiders" are actually people paid from within the company to purposely leak the inside information and opinions they tell them to, in an attempt to sway public opinion, and that this practice has gone on since the early 00's. Was it concrete proof? No, but it's something I and many others had suspected for a long time, and we have little reason to believe it any less than the other "insider" info dumps.

As I said in my previous post in here, I've been here almost 20 years, and it's absolutely a recurring pattern on this forum. Some major event or announcement happens, and sure enough, not too much later, a big spectacle of an expose thread appears and all the "insiders" crawl out of the woodwork to drop a boatload of insider info with a heavy dose of Doom & Gloom. Every time, you'd think the company was going to collapse, the parks were going to be sold, etc. Never happens.

Why do all the insiders always show up at the same time? Why do they all have a very similar style of posting and communicating?

Option B: Often, the "insider info" is just the collective news, rumors, and opinions already known and expressed throughout the online community, only wrapped up and written in a way that implies official-ness. As in, anyone who pays close enough attention could reasonably write something up that sounds like insider info leak.

Things to consider before blindly trusting threads like this and panicking.

We're on a secret email list. We get our marching orders from Michael Eisner.

 

[Chef Mickey]

Demand is down, even with the artificially and surprisingly low park caps only DHS is close to its limit. And it has the lowest one.

It’s surprised a lot of people.

That’s fine...2 weeks in and the track record speaks for itself. You know that. This impact is real, but There is no doubt Disney will be back.

This isn’t a Disney issue. That is the key point. MGM just posted a revenue decline of 91%. Confidence needs to be rebuilt.

 

[PhotoDave219]

I don't know what people expect from Disney anymore.

First they are running the parks almost empty because for some God awful reason they decided to open during a raging and highly contagious pandemic. If I go there on a trip after I get home I'm going to have to self quarantine for another two weeks so it makes a vacation look silly.

Second the parks are open during a raging and highly contagious pandemic in the current ground zero of the raging and highly contagious pandemic. While Orlando isn't Miami it's still not ideal to travel there if only for the most dedicated in my opinion.

And finally the parks are open during a raging and highly contagious pandemic.

If you see the videos on Youtube you can easily see there are not enough guests in the park, it makes one wonder if they are making enough to make daily payroll after paying the bills. I don't know how Disney can support keeping the parks open right now without opening the gates for everyone.

Also, how was Disney supposed to plan for something like Covid-19 anyway? Give each guest a body condom?



Either way welcome back @PhotoDave219 and @mkt, I haven't seen you two sexy men post in a while, or when I have time to look around myself...

I'm not really here... Nice to see you too.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

I took the next 2 days off from work. I live 16 miles from Universal, 30 miles from Disney. Neither resort could give me a hotel rate, as an annual pass holder, that was worth me actually staying at either or, as opposed to driving home. It may not be much, but this is where they need to get a grip with reality. I love staycations. But $150 to stay at Pop Century right now after resort fees with no access to the parks? I have two words for you, and they’re not “Happy Birthday”.

Expect me soon? No wait, that’s three words.. hmmmmm

 

[UNCgolf]

Golden parachute.

That's not really how corporate executive contracts are typically structured. I haven't seen John Skipper's (or Disney's in general), of course, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that the remaining contract length was somehow tied in to how much money he was going to receive, but generally that extension wouldn't really have any effect on whatever compensation he received as a result of termination.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Skipper resigned in December 2017. Jimmy Pitaro took over three months later.

Lol

Nice conspiracy theory

Right, it's much more likely that Disney JUST SO HAPPENED to move their Consumer Products division under their Parks and Resorts division immediately after the chairman of their Consumer Products division took over the presidency of ESPN because the former president got himself canned due to a cocaine blackmail scheme. And this just so happened to set up a runoff for CEO between the head of the newly formed Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products division and the head of the newly formed Direct-to-Consumer & International division. Absolutely. You're right. None of this was planned. Disney absolutely blew up their ENTIRE corporate structure by accident and the first domino was John Skipper's coke dealer.

Oh and my version is the conspiracy version. No doubt no doubt.

 

[brb1006]

I'm not really here... Nice to see you too.

I'm picturing you appearing and disappearing from the boards like this moment from Spongebob.

Squidward - PhotoDave

Mr Krabs - Insiders

Spongebob - Members of this site.

 

[pheneix]

There has to be a fudge factor built in to their current outlook. In the best case scenario, the parks stay open, take a bit of a financial hit but show they can still operate their business. At least with this approach they can hope for a very slight return to normality late summer/ early Autumn next year (assuming a miracle vaccine is produced and spread).

However, on the other hand, if they voluntarily shut down operations, it'll send out a horrible message to vacationers and they can kiss goodbye to any sort of surge in bookings for 2021, 2022 and so on.

It really is a do or die situation for Disney, Universal and others.

You're absolutely right. This is why they are doing it to themselves. Disney needs to look like they have the lights on. This is their play to salvage future bookings. As the headlines get spookier and the virus sticks around, I dunno what those future bookings are gonna look like. Images of empty theme parks are almost as bad for their reputation than staying closed. It's so *obvious* ppl are staying away cause they don't feel safe.

UO had a little more motivation behind their decision than future bookings. They really wanted to be "first" to open. They leaned on the state government to make it happen. By all accounts this action forced Disney to commit to a much larger reopening than they wanted. If Comcast's goal was to waste as much of Disney's money as possible, they succeeded. I also think UO has an easier roadmap to a profitable operation re: smaller size. There currently isn't a lot of evidence they are making any money tho.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I've been told the property as a whole is profitable right now, but just, and is improving for the most part.

As a complete outsider, one of the things I'm most curious about in this circumstance is how few people they need for WDW to break even or maybe even turn a small profit.

I know they've become accustomed to wringing every last dollar out of the place, but my broader feeling is that the fetish for endless growth in profits is one of the problems with the current economic model that has caused many of the things a lot of us dislike at the Disney Parks.

The idea that they could get by with each park (with reduced offerings) bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a day ($200,000-$500,000 at the low end?) in addition to whatever is coming in from the resorts and Disney Springs doesn't sound crazy to me. That kind of revenue would surely be the very minimum even with reduced attendance in the low thousands, though I have no idea what it costs to run each of the parks.

If that's the case, it's far from ideal... but it would suggest that the resort is not quite an iceberg set to sink Disney any day now. Again, though, this comes from a position of curiosity rather than knowledge. I think it's a given they haven't needed as many guests and as high prices as they have been charging for the place to run a healthy profit for a long time now, so it's kind of interesting to consider how low attendance could go and for it to technically still be a viable business.

I'm also super curious to know how DLP is going, though that seems off the radar.