COO and Iger Heir Apparent Tom Staggs Leaving Disney

[Mad Dog]

While I'm not a stockholder and I honestly could care less about every other arm of the company, I truly want to see the theme parks flourish. WDW has been an absolute mess lately. Yes, maintenance has gotten better around the resort, but Epcot is so stale, Animal Kingdom needs more to do, Hollywood Studios is an epic disaster, and Magic Kingdom hasn't gotten a true E-ticket in 24 years.

On the other hand, Disneyland and California Adventure are looking great and have plenty of attractions to offer, Hong Kong Disneyland has been getting some great additions the past few years with more in the pipeline, (while not owned by Disney...)the Tokyo parks are as good as ever, and Disneyland Paris is finally getting the refurbs and maintenance it's needed and their Studios park has a number of expansions planned in the coming years too.

With six resorts worldwide, the company needs to continue investment in all parks, especially WDW. Wouldn't you want your flagship resort be a shining example for the company? It sure isn't right now.

Yes, I agree with all of that..............Just like Cinderella has step sisters, so does Disney. But WDW is the step sister.

 

[Macfr3ak]

I vote for John Lasseter :ears:

 

[IzzyB]

Yes, I agree with all of that..............Just like Cinderella has step sisters, so does Disney. But WDW is the step sister.

From a business side of things Disney is smart to not do much with WDW. They get crazy attendance, crazy spending, crazy hotel money, etc and not spend as much. It is a profit machine, where their other parks lag behind. So they are trying to do something to get those other parks to be profit machines. It is business at it worst for the fans, but business at its best in a textbook manner.

As a fan I wish they wouldn't listen to the business side of things, but as a business major I can't blame them. I am glad that Universal has really pushed them to start doing stuff at their parks, because again as a fan I want this.

 

[Mad Dog]

From a business side of things Disney is smart to not do much with WDW. They get crazy attendance, crazy spending, crazy hotel money, etc and not spend as much. It is a profit machine, where their other parks lag behind. So they are trying to do something to get those other parks to be profit machines. It is business at it worst for the fans, but business at its best in a textbook manner.

As a fan I wish they wouldn't listen to the business side of things, but as a business major I can't blame them. I am glad that Universal has really pushed them to start doing stuff at their parks, because again as a fan I want this.

Yes, without Universal's success since Hogsmeade, I would seriously doubt we'd be seeing, Pandora, Toy Story Land, & Star Wars Land at WDW.....The problem with Paris & Hong Kong is that their futures don't appear too rosy. They just might end up being money pits that they keep throwing funds at that can be used elsewhere . Two mistakes. Two long term failures.

 

[IzzyB]

Yes, without Universal's success since Hogsmeade, I would seriously doubt we'd be seeing, Pandora, Toy Story Land, & Star Wars Land at WDW.....The problem with Paris & Hong Kong is that their futures don't appear too rosy. They just might end up being money pits that they keep throwing funds at that can be used elsewhere . Two mistakes. Two long term failures.

Agreed, those parks are mistakes and I wish they would just sell them or shut them down vs. turning them into money pits.

The interesting part of Disney is I feel their CEOs have too much power over the direction of the company and that is why we see these different projects fail or just stop existing. Then we get new bad ideas and the good ideas seem to not materialize because they have to pay for the bad ones. I feel the board of directors really needs to be pushing the vision of the company as that is a more stable function. I feel Disney's decision making has not been stable and that is why we have this hodgepodge of crap we have today.

 

[GadgetGuru]

Agreed, those parks are mistakes and I wish they would just sell them or shut them down vs. turning them into money pits.

I'll agree with you about Hong Kong. Especially with Shanghai coming, I feel like there's not much future growth for that park. Paris just needs a cash + advertising injection and it could do spectacularly. That's a park that should be doing much, much better if it wasn't for poor choices by Disney.

 

[quinnmac000]

Agreed, those parks are mistakes and I wish they would just sell them or shut them down vs. turning them into money pits.

The interesting part of Disney is I feel their CEOs have too much power over the direction of the company and that is why we see these different projects fail or just stop existing. Then we get new bad ideas and the good ideas seem to not materialize because they have to pay for the bad ones. I feel the board of directors really needs to be pushing the vision of the company as that is a more stable function. I feel Disney's decision making has not been stable and that is why we have this hodgepodge of crap we have today.

More so when you have multiple branches of a company doing well, people can ignore the bad. So with WDAS, The live action dramatic, ABC, Freeform etc doing well, parks recording profits (despite the issues) and the most major thing being ESPN, the board more likely will ignore the problems with the parks because guess what people still are coming and they are getting a return on their investment. If the board really wanted to do more for the parks, they would break the company while still be the parent company (Time Warner and Time Warner Cable, Newscorp and 20th Century Fox) and make the media side one company with the theme parks a completely separate entity.

As for Shanghai, that was the most stupid investment by Disney. Shanghai has little importance to the CCP. Shanghai tends to have a culture of bandwagoning. It jumps at whatever is cool for a moment and jumps and switches from thing to thing which means once something better than Disney comes around, the people will desert so fast to the next big thing. If only Disney leadership realized the culture of the city they decided to put the park in maybe they would had less issues.

Beijing on the other hand, is rooted in tradition and prides themselves on that. It also is the power hub of China as it is the capital which would probably mean Comcast won't have as many Thanks China moments as Disney.

Beijing is all about the politics, but also about the culture. The Shanghainese are much more about the money. In Beijing, negotiate deals if you have firm official backing; Shanghai deals are much more about the bottom line.

 

[Nick]

Yes, without Universal's success since Hogsmeade, I would seriously doubt we'd be seeing, Pandora, Toy Story Land, & Star Wars Land at WDW.....The problem with Paris & Hong Kong is that their futures don't appear too rosy. They just might end up being money pits that they keep throwing funds at that can be used elsewhere . Two mistakes. Two long term failures.

While I agree, remember that Carsland was announced the same year as Hogsmeade. So the whole "themed IP Land" strategy would still be a thing. Just maybe not as prominently.

 

[Mad Dog]

While I agree, remember that Carsland was announced the same year as Hogsmeade. So the whole "themed IP Land" strategy would still be a thing. Just maybe not as prominently.

I really wasn't referring to themed lands. It just happened they were. I was just referring to WDW and lack of expansions, thus the omission of all things Disney California.

 

[Disneyhead]

While I agree, remember that Carsland was announced the same year as Hogsmeade. So the whole "themed IP Land" strategy would still be a thing. Just maybe not as prominently.

Cars Land was designed after Disney lost the bidding war over Potter. They knew what was coming.

 

[JoeCamel]

This was also the time Iger was pronouncing the Orlando theme park business as "mature" and not worthy of investment?

Wonder how he came to that conclusion?

 

[Mad Dog]

This was also the time Iger was pronouncing the Orlando theme park business as "mature" and not worthy of investment?

Wonder how he came to that conclusion?

They'd probably still be believing that if Universal wasn't revived by HP and Comcast and showed everyone that mature concept was woefully wrong. Orlando just had another record tourist year.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

They'd probably still be believing that if Universal wasn't revived by HP and Comcast and showed everyone that mature concept was woefully wrong. Orlando just had another record tourist year.

This is also part of the reason why there's such anger at MM+ too.

 

[IzzyB]

This is also part of the reason why there's such anger at MM+ too.

Agreed. If it had cost less and they were adding new rides still, I don't think anyone would hate MM+. The GP eats it up. My friend who was a first time visitor to WDW as an adult, but had been to DL a bunch (they live in CA) loved the MM+ thing. One of the first things she said, did you know they print the name on them?!? That is so cool. lol GP eats up silly things. But the price tag and lack of rides make MM+ a failure to theme park geeks.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Agreed. If it had cost less and they were adding new rides still, I don't think anyone would hate MM+. The GP eats it up. My friend who was a first time visitor to WDW as an adult, but had been to DL a bunch (they live in CA) loved the MM+ thing. One of the first things she said, did you know they print the name on them?!? That is so cool. lol GP eats up silly things. But the price tag and lack of rides make MM+ a failure to theme park geeks.

It's not a failure just to theme park geeks. I'm going to UOR with four first timers in May. I can bet this would have been WDW instead if they added attractions. Names on a bands impresses people when they do end up going, but they go FOR RIDES.

 

[IzzyB]

It's not a failure just to theme park geeks. I'm going to UOR with four first timers in May. I can bet this would have been WDW instead if they added attractions. Names on a bands impresses people when they do end up going, but they go FOR RIDES.

There is a difference between MM+ being a failure and the parks not having rides. The parks needed new rides and Disney was dumb for having the thinking they had about Orlando being a mature market. I 100% agree with that. But that is a separate issue from MM+. Yes, MM+ ate up money that "could" have been used for attractions, but with the mindset WDW execs had they would not have added new rides. They would have spent the money somewhere else dumb or just not spent it at all. So evaluating the MM+ system on its own is what I am saying. The guests eat up this crap and love it. Did it return the money Disney wanted after spending 2B, probably not. But the initial concept was sound, the execution SUCKED which caused it to cost way more than it should have, which means guest spending increases won't cover the costs. But I still go back to some of the money spent needed to be spent whether MM+ happened or not. But I won't argue that they executed this VERY poorly and spent way too much money on it. That is all true.