So, who do you think, overall, has been the best CEO of the WDC ???

[WDWmazprty]

Lots of discussions about the current CEO and the running of the company overall throughout the years.

In your opinion who was the best CEO?

 

[G00fyDad]

It is an unpopular one for many people but I always liked Eisner. I never visited during Disney (Roy), Tatum, Walker or Miller's time but I have always like Eisner's run. A lot of people act like he did not know what he was doing and was a collossal *** behind the scenes but he did a lot and he was in charge when I firstr started going.

 

[WizardofDestiny123]

Roy Disney was a great CEO who helped steer the company to success after Walt. He really deserves a lot of credit for getting Walt Disney World off the ground, and the resort is just as much his legacy to the company as it is Walt's.

Michael Eisner's first 15 years at the company were some of the best years Disney ever saw as a company. The realization of Walt Disney Televison expansion, and Disney's film and animation divisions revitalized, they launched the cruise line, Disney appeared on Broadway, and, of course, the biggest park expansions. Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea, Animal Kingdom, MGM-Studios, and Disney California Adventure all happened at Disney under Eisner's watch.

But...Michael Eisner's last 7 or so years...weren't so good.

 

[Robbiem]

Roy Disney was a great CEO who helped steer the company to success after Walt. He really deserves a lot of credit for getting Walt Disney World off the ground, and the resort is just as much his legacy to the company as it is Walt's.

Michael Eisner's first 15 years at the company were some of the best years Disney ever saw as a company. The realization of Walt Disney Televison expansion, and Disney's film and animation divisions revitalized, they launched the cruise line, Disney appeared on Broadway, and, of course, the biggest park expansions. Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea, Animal Kingdom, MGM-Studios, and Disney California Adventure all happened at Disney under Eisner's watch.

But...Michael Eisner's last 7 or so years...weren't so good.

I agree early Eisner really appeared to love the the parks and Disney culture and built and developed on his predecessors but was able to move on from the ‘what would Walt do’ era while still keeping the company ideals and values.

Iger and later management have pursued a much more corporate approach- dropping the Walt and just using ‘Disney’ for example and growing by acquisitions rather than developing.

What would have been interesting would be to see how a longer term Ron Miller would have faired. He had an interesting start with Touchstone, Disney channel etc but never really got to do anything in the parks. His approach to Euro Disney or expansion in Florida would have been interesting to see - maybe a smaller Spanish resort and a fuller build out of epcot

 

[Comped]

I agree early Eisner really appeared to love the the parks and Disney culture and built and developed on his predecessors but was able to move on from the ‘what would Walt do’ era while still keeping the company ideals and values.

Iger and later management have pursued a much more corporate approach- dropping the Walt and just using ‘Disney’ for example and growing by acquisitions rather than developing.

What would have been interesting would be to see how a longer term Ron Miller would have faired. He had an interesting start with Touchstone, Disney channel etc but never really got to do anything in the parks. His approach to Euro Disney or expansion in Florida would have been interesting to see - maybe a smaller Spanish resort and a fuller build out of epcot

Despite what many like to say, I've been told Spain was only vaguely considered after London was ruled out due to it eroding the British travel to WDW (don't believe there wasn't enough flat land - it was to save WDW's international market). Paris was better located, was much more politically stable (Franco was apparently still on the minds of some execs, although he'd died 9 years before development officially started), and didn't have environmental concerns like other French sites. Tax breaks were also a factor. Although the execs would later regret their descision of putting it in France due to strict labour laws...

 

[Robbiem]

Despite what many like to say, I've been told Spain was only vaguely considered after London was ruled out due to it eroding the British travel to WDW (don't believe there wasn't enough flat land - it was to save WDW's international market). Paris was better located, was much more politically stable (Franco was apparently still on the minds of some execs, although he'd died 9 years before development officially started), and didn't have environmental concerns like other French sites. Tax breaks were also a factor. Although the execs would later regret their descision of putting it in France due to strict labour laws...

Interesting. I’d love to know more about the early planning for Euro Disney. I can see whySpain was ruled out. In the 70s/80s as it was a still very infrastructure poor and developing from years of fascism. As you say Paris was chosen for the deal Disney for and being fairly central for most of Western Europe but wasn’t the greatest choice long term.

I would have loved to have seen a London Disneyland though - there were quite a few large plots available then - whole areas of the old docklands, the olympic park and big sites outside the city in Essex, Kent or sussex where you could have built a Tokyo sized resort.

I’d also love to know more about hoe Hong Kong Disneyland was chosen and built over the singapore and Australian alternatives

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This one isn’t that close…if you have to separate the brothers and don’t consider them a team/shared history

 

[Comped]

Interesting. I’d love to know more about the early planning for Euro Disney. I can see whySpain was ruled out. In the 70s/80s as it was a still very infrastructure poor and developing from years of fascism. As you say Paris was chosen for the deal Disney for and being fairly central for most of Western Europe but wasn’t the greatest choice long term.

I would have loved to have seen a London Disneyland though - there were quite a few large plots available then - whole areas of the old docklands, the olympic park and big sites outside the city in Essex, Kent or sussex where you could have built a Tokyo sized resort.

I’d also love to know more about hoe Hong Kong Disneyland was chosen and built over the singapore and Australian alternatives

I've met multiple Disney executives who were involved in that decision and they all regret not choosing London. Even in Dick's new book he claims it's about land being not flat, but that's nowhere near the truth as I said... Paris continues to this day to have massive labor issues and suffered from chronic under investment because of the overpay they had to endure on labor spending during the creation of DLP, which fed into Disney not being able to finance the park for ownership anywhere near what they wanted. I still don't think Spain was a good choice either because of infrastructure and government reasons as you mentioned, plus it's too far out from most of Europe. There were talks about both Madrid and Barcelona but neither had the connections transportation wise that Paris or London did. There has been some discussion about Italy but Italy was never considered primarily because of the cost of land and the fact that it would have been a singapore-sized park in all likelihood because of various issues.

Australia was never seriously considered unless they were talking about putting it on the Perth side of the continent, as distances to much of the Asian market made it less than ideal. At least I've never heard anyone other than Dick Nunis talk about it in any serious terms. As far as I'm aware no serious study was made by anyone but Dick into if Australia would work. It was not considered serious because the side of the continent where all the people were was also quite far away from most of Asia...

Hong Kong was chosen, and you're going to think I'm crazy for this but it's 100% true, because Disney at one point thought that the British were going to get another hundred years out of the deal with China, and even when it was clear they weren't, not only were things too far to back out, but other options were no longer as appealing. Singapore was discussed briefly, and I know there's at least one pair of plans out there... But the size was the problem. Actually it was going to be the same plot of land where Universal Studios Singapore now exists, and that has major issues with size and capacity. Ironically the only reason why Singapore was even in the contention was because of the FanFest that Disney rerouted from the aborted state fair project. So popular was it in Singapore that it was a serious consideration for a while among people who thought Hong Kong wasn't an option. I've always thought that if they wanted a second resort in East Asia, that Malaysia made more sense, and if not that then Indonesia or the Philippines. Or Eisner could have waited a decade and simply built the park in Dubai they were going to instead... Disney has far too many parks in East Asia right now for my taste, they're all slightly cannibalizing each other. Universal has the same problem, but at least they are slightly more distanced...

Hong Kong is still the worst performing park out of every Disney park ever. Politics made it much more untenable than the pandemic, and the fact that the locals preferred Ocean Park anyway doesn't help. Add in that there's a good chance Disney could decide one day to buy out the Chinese government ownership in Shanghai Disneyland (a law passed a while back allows them to do this), and any chance Hong Kong gets a major development like that second gate seems rather remote. If the British were still in charge I have no doubt that it probably would have been a much bigger project and would have received a couple of expansions by now in addition to what it did in real life, but that's because of the operating environment being far better...

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I've met multiple Disney executives who were involved in that decision and they all regret not choosing London. Even in Dick's new book he claims it's about land being not flat, but that's nowhere near the truth as I said... Paris continues to this day to have massive labor issues and suffered from chronic under investment because of the overpay they had to endure on labor spending during the creation of DLP, which fed into Disney not being able to finance the park for ownership anywhere near what they wanted. I still don't think Spain was a good choice either because of infrastructure and government reasons as you mentioned, plus it's too far out from most of Europe. There were talks about both Madrid and Barcelona but neither had the connections transportation wise that Paris or London did. There has been some discussion about Italy but Italy was never considered primarily because of the cost of land and the fact that it would have been a singapore-sized park in all likelihood because of various issues.

Australia was never seriously considered unless they were talking about putting it on the Perth side of the continent, as distances to much of the Asian market made it less than ideal. At least I've never heard anyone other than Dick Nunis talk about it in any serious terms. As far as I'm aware no serious study was made by anyone but Dick into if Australia would work. It was not considered serious because the side of the continent where all the people were was also quite far away from most of Asia...

Hong Kong was chosen, and you're going to think I'm crazy for this but it's 100% true, because Disney at one point thought that the British were going to get another hundred years out of the deal with China, and even when it was clear they weren't, not only were things too far to back out, but other options were no longer as appealing. Singapore was discussed briefly, and I know there's at least one pair of plans out there... But the size was the problem. Actually it was going to be the same plot of land where Universal Studios Singapore now exists, and that has major issues with size and capacity. Ironically the only reason why Singapore was even in the contention was because of the FanFest that Disney rerouted from the aborted state fair project. So popular was it in Singapore that it was a serious consideration for a while among people who thought Hong Kong wasn't an option. I've always thought that if they wanted a second resort in East Asia, that Malaysia made more sense, and if not that then Indonesia or the Philippines. Or Eisner could have waited a decade and simply built the park in Dubai they were going to instead... Disney has far too many parks in East Asia right now for my taste, they're all slightly cannibalizing each other. Universal has the same problem, but at least they are slightly more distanced...

Hong Kong is still the worst performing park out of every Disney park ever. Politics made it much more untenable than the pandemic, and the fact that the locals preferred Ocean Park anyway doesn't help. Add in that there's a good chance Disney could decide one day to buy out the Chinese government ownership in Shanghai Disneyland (a law passed a while back allows them to do this), and any chance Hong Kong gets a major development like that second gate seems rather remote. If the British were still in charge I have no doubt that it probably would have been a much bigger project and would have received a couple of expansions by now in addition to what it did in real life, but that's because of the operating environment being far better...

I think the “best” choice may have been Germany (Deutschland)…

But it wasn’t possible at that time for obvious reason.

France was the compromise. Didn’t want it on the med…didn’t want it in the isles.

It’s possible an American vacation compound just doesn’t fit in Europe…

 

[IanDLBZF]

Iger IMHO.
Eisner didn't quite pull it off, especially since he's the one partially to blame for Epcot's demise.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Iger IMHO.
Eisner didn't quite pull it off, especially since he's the one partially to blame for Epcot's demise.

So If you were to consider anything not on the Florida monorail line between 1995-2005…what would you think?

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I cant choose between the 3 I’m most familiar with, they‘ve all got pros and cons…

Roy gave us MK and ultimately WDW when it could have stopped after Walt died, he died shortly after though so not a lot more to judge. If you factor in all his time running the company alongside Walt (but not CEO) he gets my vote though.

Eisner saved the company from raiders and vastly expanded the parks, without him we may still only have a couple parks worldwide today. He gave us quantity over quality though, especially after Paris flopped he lost his nerve and gave us some really bad parks.

Iger took the quantity parks that Eisner gave us and added quality to all of them, his focus was primarily on expanding the company though, not on the parks. As a parks fan I love what he did, I just wish he’d have done a lot more of it.

Chapek sucks, he doesn’t have a single pro yet.

 

[Indy_UK]

Glad to see Iger get some love

 

[Prince-1]

Definitely Eisner.

 

[TwilightZone]

Early Eisner (pre-Well's death and Paris) and early Iger (pre-him becoming buyout hungry after the successes of Pixar and Marvel).

 

[Lilofan]

I've met multiple Disney executives who were involved in that decision and they all regret not choosing London. Even in Dick's new book he claims it's about land being not flat, but that's nowhere near the truth as I said... Paris continues to this day to have massive labor issues and suffered from chronic under investment because of the overpay they had to endure on labor spending during the creation of DLP, which fed into Disney not being able to finance the park for ownership anywhere near what they wanted. I still don't think Spain was a good choice either because of infrastructure and government reasons as you mentioned, plus it's too far out from most of Europe. There were talks about both Madrid and Barcelona but neither had the connections transportation wise that Paris or London did. There has been some discussion about Italy but Italy was never considered primarily because of the cost of land and the fact that it would have been a singapore-sized park in all likelihood because of various issues.

Australia was never seriously considered unless they were talking about putting it on the Perth side of the continent, as distances to much of the Asian market made it less than ideal. At least I've never heard anyone other than Dick Nunis talk about it in any serious terms. As far as I'm aware no serious study was made by anyone but Dick into if Australia would work. It was not considered serious because the side of the continent where all the people were was also quite far away from most of Asia...

Hong Kong was chosen, and you're going to think I'm crazy for this but it's 100% true, because Disney at one point thought that the British were going to get another hundred years out of the deal with China, and even when it was clear they weren't, not only were things too far to back out, but other options were no longer as appealing. Singapore was discussed briefly, and I know there's at least one pair of plans out there... But the size was the problem. Actually it was going to be the same plot of land where Universal Studios Singapore now exists, and that has major issues with size and capacity. Ironically the only reason why Singapore was even in the contention was because of the FanFest that Disney rerouted from the aborted state fair project. So popular was it in Singapore that it was a serious consideration for a while among people who thought Hong Kong wasn't an option. I've always thought that if they wanted a second resort in East Asia, that Malaysia made more sense, and if not that then Indonesia or the Philippines. Or Eisner could have waited a decade and simply built the park in Dubai they were going to instead... Disney has far too many parks in East Asia right now for my taste, they're all slightly cannibalizing each other. Universal has the same problem, but at least they are slightly more distanced...

Hong Kong is still the worst performing park out of every Disney park ever. Politics made it much more untenable than the pandemic, and the fact that the locals preferred Ocean Park anyway doesn't help. Add in that there's a good chance Disney could decide one day to buy out the Chinese government ownership in Shanghai Disneyland (a law passed a while back allows them to do this), and any chance Hong Kong gets a major development like that second gate seems rather remote. If the British were still in charge I have no doubt that it probably would have been a much bigger project and would have received a couple of expansions by now in addition to what it did in real life, but that's because of the operating environment being far better...

There was a report Iger and Eisner visited India together in potential to build a park in India.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Early Eisner (pre-Well's death and Paris) and early Iger (pre-him becoming buyout hungry after the successes of Pixar and Marvel).

Early Iger did nothing but increase prices and reduce capex ex…2004-2010. The only thing he did was purchase Pixar and cede effective board control to Steve Jobs…which is how you have all the clueless techies now.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

There was a report Iger and Eisner visited India together in potential to build a park in India.

I highly doubt that.

At least with any intentions. They may have visited on a east Asia goodwill junket…feigning genuine interest just to keep sweatshop potential open.

Eisner wasn’t a fan of Iger other than he thought him business capable…no creative instincts.

He bought his butt with abc cause he wanted to conquer his first employer. And it worked. Full credit.

 

[Comped]

I highly doubt that.

At least with any intentions. They may have visited on a east Asia goodwill junket…feigning genuine interest just to keep sweatshop potential open.

Eisner wasn’t a fan of Iger other than he thought him business capable…no creative instincts.

He bought his butt with abc cause he wanted to conquer his first employer. And it worked. Full credit.

India also, back when Eisner was still in, could never have dreamed of being able to pay for a Disney park. Both in terms of whatever gov sponsorship Disney wanted, and for its residents to come in. Never heard of ANY plans, concrete or not, to build one, or even execs joking about it. Dubai progressed quite far, so did Singapore, some additional regional parks and entertainment concepts stateside, and various other ideas, but never India. The economics aren't there.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

India also, back when Eisner was still in, could never have dreamed of being able to pay for a Disney park. Both in terms of whatever gov sponsorship Disney wanted, and for its residents to come in. Never heard of ANY plans, concrete or not, to build one, or even execs joking about it. Dubai progressed quite far, so did Singapore, some additional regional parks and entertainment concepts stateside, and various other ideas, but never India. The economics aren't there.

It’s a common mistake made by fools with an E*trade account or a subscription to the Wall Street journal. Dime a dozen