News The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors Extends Robert A. Iger’s Contract as CEO Through 2026

[Animaniac93-98]

In other CEO/Parks News Six Flags just posted a 9% drop in attendance across the Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks for the most recent quarter. Lost $100M for the quarter and the CEO is stepping down. Losses attributed to weather.

Weather caused 'significantly' less earnings, Six Flags says. Now, their CEO is stepping down.

Six Flags, which was formerly a longtime Arlington-based company, is now headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. after the company merged with Cedar Fair.

www.wfaa.com

A big problem for these regional theme parks is that they are absolutely at the mercy of weather, and not just heat.

Much of their infrastructure is outdoor, uncovered rides, queues, seating areas etc

If it rains all day? if it's unseasonably cold? If there's a smog/smoke alert? People skip it and go another day (or not at all).

It's where seasonal holiday events might bring in crowds who would otherwise not be interested, but it also costs a lot of money to make infrastructure changes, with no direct/immediate ROI, to these parks to be more adaptable to weather.

 

[flynnibus]

Yeah I'd be very surprised if that was the real reason.

Math is math - when you close entirely, or significantly, that is real attendance and revenue that is zero'd out. And not just by 5-10% - but by huge percentages. The impact at the corp level gets dilluted - but the gaps are real.

It's why even Disney reports when a holiday shifts in and out of a quarter... the impact of 5-10 days when you're only talking about 90 days is huge.

 

[flynnibus]

So who cares where a corporate address says they are located, the question is do their employees still work in and contribute to the California economy. And if the answer is Yes, then they never "left".

Use an impossible standard and yes, you'll always get the answer you want.

No one is boycotting Cali - they still have employees there because they do business there and because displacing is very expensive and not necessary if all you are doing is changing where your future investments will be. That's still a loss for Cali - when a company starts building their future elsewhere, that's money that Cali lost.

If you stop growing in one spot... where historically you would always put new growth..

What do you call that?

These companies are still growing - they are choosing to invest in places outside of CA instead of in CA.

Companies of that scale rarely 'leave' outright because replacing people and infrastructure is expensive.. it's better to just start investing elsewhere and let that other stuff age out as time goes on.

 

[Disney Irish]

Use an impossible standard and yes, you'll always get the answer you want.

No one is boycotting Cali - they still have employees there because they do business there and because displacing is very expensive and not necessary if all you are doing is changing where your future investments will be. That's still a loss for Cali - when a company starts building their future elsewhere, that's money that Cali lost.

Except that is not the way it was framed by those posters, your post aside. It was literally them trying to say that these companies have “left” the state, even trying to prove with an article, as if it were a mass exodus by them. And that couldn’t be further from the truth, as stated none have actually “left”. They still do business and have employees in the state of California. Heck many of them actually do business directly with the State itself. And in some cases, because I have direct knowledge of it I can say that some have even expanded in recent years in California.

Now if you want to change or pivot the topic to these companies potentially minimizing future investments in California, sure we can have that conversation. And I’d probably agree in some respects regarding the California business environment. But again that wasn’t was originally trying to be claimed.

 

[flynnibus]

Except that is not the way it was framed by those posters, your post aside. It was literally them trying to say that these companies have “left” the state, even trying to prove with an article, as if it were a mass exodus by them. And that couldn’t be further from the truth, as stated none have actually “left”. They still do business and have employees in the state of California.

We all know what 'left' means in this context and those posters aren't wrong. You're the one trying to hyper literal and trying to make 'leave' mean they had to leave the state entirely, 100% employees, etc.. which of course is ridiculous. No one does that - that means to not operate there at all, which unless we're talking Iran, Russia, etc.. no one does. The truth behind your dissent is the idea that not all companies actually MOVE when they 'leave', some simply pivot as I described. Some literally move operations, but many simply move certain disciplines and focus.. because they may find reason to not to spend to move everything. But you skip over all that and try to apply an impossible definition of 'leave' which is absurd.

When someone like Boeing made the decision to move HQ to VA from Chicago - it's still notable and significant to all the players involved.. even if their airplane plants never left Seattle when Boeing relocated it's HQ the last time.

 

[Disney Irish]

We all know what 'left' means in this context and those posters aren't wrong. You're the one trying to hyper literal and trying to make 'leave' mean they had to leave the state entirely, 100% employees, etc.. which of course is ridiculous. No one does that - that means to not operate there at all, which unless we're talking Iran, Russia, etc.. no one does. The truth behind your dissent is the idea that not all companies actually MOVE when they 'leave', some simply pivot as I described. Some literally move operations, but many simply move certain disciplines and focus.. because they may find reason to not to spend to move everything. But you skip over all that and try to apply an impossible definition of 'leave' which is absurd.

When someone like Boeing made the decision to move HQ to VA from Chicago - it's still notable and significant to all the players involved.. even if their airplane plants never left Seattle when Boeing relocated it's HQ the last time.

Do we all really know what "left" means? Because it sure doesn't seem so to those posters who were trying to make that claim, again with articles trying to prove it. Sure, you and me might know the distinction of moving some operations elsewhere while leaving other operations in the same place, but that doesn't seem to be the case with all posters here trying to make the claim of companies "leaving".

I had this same argument with some other posters at the beginning of the pandemic when they made the claim about some of these same companies and their "mass exodus" with people packing up U-Hauls and leaving California. It was false then and false now, because people only read the headlines and not actually find out the real facts.

Also if a companies HQ address has moved to another location but the main factories are still in the same location they have been and are still employing the same people, honestly do you really think any of those workers working in the factory care where the HQ is located especially since it wasn't local to them anyways? If they aren't having to move themselves and still have a job in the same location I can pretty much guarantee they don't care that their HQ is now in some other place. And that is the whole point.

 

[flynnibus]

Also if a companies HQ address has moved to another location but the main factories are still in the same location they have been and are still employing the same people, honestly do you really think any of those workers working in the factory care where the HQ is located especially since it wasn't local to them anyways? If they aren't having to move themselves and still have a job in the same location I can pretty much guarantee they don't care that their HQ is now in some other place. And that is the whole point.

If your point is the layman doesn't understand the significance of economics, politics, or finance ... well you've picked a weird hill to die on to try to convince people that we all already know the lay only care about their immediate impact.

 

[Disney Irish]

If your point is the layman doesn't understand the significance of economics, politics, or finance ... well you've picked a weird hill to die on to try to convince people that we all already know the lay only care about their immediate impact.

Well that is one of the points yes. Because in the end the worker only cares about themselves and not some future potential investment made by the company that may or may not affect them directly.

Because the future investments may or may not be made in a specific location, or it made be made in that location plus others spread out as corporate initiatives change. So this idea that we should care because a company changes their address while still keeping operations in the same location is also weird. Because it talks about future potential investment that may or may not be made in some hypothetical future. For example I mentioned that some of those companies have expand investments in California. Chevron as an example expanded their biofuels and other investments in California while it changed its corporate HQ address to Texas. So this idea that just because a company "left" and changes an address means they invest less into a location is also false in many ways.

So we can go around and around about this, but in the end just like most things its all just talk. The proof is actually in the pudding as they say.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Do we all really know what "left" means?

Well, that's not right.

 

[Kamikaze]

Math is math - when you close entirely, or significantly, that is real attendance and revenue that is zero'd out. And not just by 5-10% - but by huge percentages. The impact at the corp level gets dilluted - but the gaps are real.

It's why even Disney reports when a holiday shifts in and out of a quarter... the impact of 5-10 days when you're only talking about 90 days is huge.

But you have no actual numbers to back that up, just their word that weather affected those days. They didn't present any actually evidence that was the case. Nor would they.

 

[flynnibus]

But you have no actual numbers to back that up, just their word that weather affected those days. They didn't present any actually evidence that was the case. Nor would they.

Because its a quarterly report - not a day by day blog. You want the full table of dates and parks? They already gave the data on impacted parks.

Put away the tin hats

 

[Kamikaze]

Because its a quarterly report - not a day by day blog. You want the full table of dates and parks? They already gave the data on impacted parks.

Put away the tin hats

Is it really a tinfoil hat moment to say that they might be attributing an attendance downturn to weather when it could be other factors? Did weather play a role in those numbers? Sure. Is it the full 9% drop? Absolutely not.

 

[flynnibus]

Is it really a tinfoil hat moment to say that they might be attributing an attendance downturn to weather when it could be other factors? Did weather play a role in those numbers? Sure. Is it the full 9% drop? Absolutely not.

They don’t attribute the full change to weather alone. They say the results were impacted and cite measuring points. You however take this to be some hand waving. While everyone knows parks are impacted by weather - people don’t show up!

 

[Dranth]

Is it really a tinfoil hat moment to say that they might be attributing an attendance downturn to weather when it could be other factors? Did weather play a role in those numbers? Sure. Is it the full 9% drop? Absolutely not.

The reasons they provide on earning calls and reports are almost never the explanation for the full amount of any increase or decrease. It is why they say things like "largely due to" or similar. They are, however, normally the biggest reasons and from what they said, it would be hard to argue that isn't the case.

Losing entire days due to closure over a three-month period is massive and that is without even looking at just general decreases due to rain or heat people don't want to deal with.

 

[Kamikaze]

They don’t attribute the full change to weather alone. They say the results were impacted and cite measuring points. You however take this to be some hand waving. While everyone knows parks are impacted by weather - people don’t show up!

The reasons they provide on earning calls and reports are almost never the explanation for the full amount of any increase or decrease. It is why they say things like "largely due to" or similar. They are, however, normally the biggest reasons and from what they said, it would be hard to argue that isn't the case.

Losing entire days due to closure over a three-month period is massive and that is without even looking at just general decreases due to rain or heat people don't want to deal with.

Unfortunately because the merger is so new, its difficult to look back at previous data and point out how its always the same, but their report for the same quarter last year - the first combined report - also calls out weather as the reason for attendance drop: https://s204.q4cdn.com/155295784/files/doc_financials/2024/q2/Six-Flags-Release-Aug-8-2024.pdf

So this is a drop off that drop, which means either that a) the weather was even worse, or b) the weather isn't the factor.

 

[Jrb1979]

Unfortunately because the merger is so new, its difficult to look back at previous data and point out how its always the same, but their report for the same quarter last year - the first combined report - also calls out weather as the reason for attendance drop: https://s204.q4cdn.com/155295784/files/doc_financials/2024/q2/Six-Flags-Release-Aug-8-2024.pdf

So this is a drop off that drop, which means either that a) the weather was even worse, or b) the weather isn't the factor.

Weather has played a factor for sure. From what has been said during the call, the biggest reason is that only 15 of their parks have seen high attendance and profit. The other 25 parks are what's hurting them. The former Cedar Fair parks seem to be doing ok. Its the former Six Flags parks that aren't. It makes sense as most of them have a bad reputation