I’d give him 5/10 for the following reason:
Movies. Buying marvel (&pixar) was probably Iger‘s smartest move. MCU was already in progress but disney reaped a lot of the benefits. Lucasfilm has been a mess but could be ok in the long run. The rest of the movie business has been disappointing rehashing of the past. Live action remakes and sequels very few original films withdrawing from hand drawn animation, ending the relashonship with ghibli, bruckhiemer etc. Pre Isner disney was much more rounded with touchstone, Hollywood pictures, miramax and new franchises like Pirates, National treasure etc if this had continued Disney probably wouldn’t have needed to buy fox for adult content.
tv. Not living in the US I know enough about the us tv market to really comment on this. Others im sure will know more about the ecconomics of ESPN etc. From a UK perspective Disney lost sky to comcast. Longer term Disney+ will help the transition from cable but disney need to develop a whole household solution worldwide rather than just kiddy content.
parks. Shanghai got built. Money was spent to undo some of the timid investments of the late Eisner era with DCA redo and investment in Hong Kong. DLP was fully bought out. Too much spent on the wrong things like the whole magic band project rather than building things so the parks stagnated for too long. Lots of cost cutting and closures with no replacements, reduction in show quality to improve bottom lines and brand harvesting from charging top dollar for reduced experience will harm Disney long term. Changing the resorts, especially WDW to child based marketing rather than whole household is a mistake IMO creating retreating back to the 70/80s dorky image
Much of recent spend was reactionary and in response to Universal - galaxy edge & Pandora are attempting to replicate Harry potter land rather than be their own thing (See various attempts to make a marketable butterbeer through blue milk etc) Too much reliance on IP which will date product. DVC became more prominent at the expense of regular resorts. Expansions away from the parks was timid Hawaii was built but projects like national harbour were dropped. Elsewhere the cost cutting and price rises are risking long term gains for short term profit. I think the best you can say is that after Iger you still have to go to Japan for the best experience
corporate/other rising share price and growth but from acquisitions and raising prices rather than growing into new businesses, except streaming. Fox may or may not be a good move longer term but Disney probably overpaid. Reduced quality in other areas like turning disney stores into toy shops
overall - Disney has grown by addition rather than creation often at the expense of reducing the value of existing assets Iger did well financially but not creatively and may have harmed the company in the longer term from short term gains.
