Is WDW Declining by Degrees - Kevin Yee

Originally Posted By vbdad55

<OK. Yahoo! stock price is down about 80% from its all-time high -- and that's who you would have liked to see Disney partner with?
<

are they not partnered with Yahoo now ? All .com valuations were too high, it was a false economy driven by political gain. You can't mix apples and oranges...by partnering you pay others to lend their expertise ( are you telling me Yahoo is not a world leader in portal technologies ? ) - in your ventures.


<The billions of dollars lost in the internet stock bubble in 2001 pales in comparison to the minor losses Disney suffered in go.com. However, Disney was under the gun -- either dump some money into a dot com or be taken over by a stock-rich dot com just like Time Warner (stock down about 80% from its all-time high).
<

read any of the accounts from the execs there at the time that are free to talk...it was done for PROFIT, and perceived total control of it's content, pure and simple, not because they were a takeover target. Part of the profits were not enough, they wanted it all, yet no ZERO expertise to proceed with. You can't just enter a field because one wants to, or because your name is Disney...as they have found out with several ventures.


As for AOl - Time Warner Merger - you'd have to asked TW CEO Gerald Levin at the time if he was motivated by $$$$$..( as well as the mouth of the south Turner).as it was portrayed as a merger of equals in valuation - right or wrong - and tock prices for T-W rose from $60 to $90 the day of the merger. This too was an example of corporate greed every bit as much as the.com ballon.

Lets remember that no one had a gun to their head, it was a conscious decision on both parts....

 

Originally Posted By vbdad55

<And let me know what you think of the S&P 500 next year when the recession hits and the bears take control of the market. I've already started pulling my positions from the S&P. We are at record highs on short positions in that index right now. Once the Wall Street brokers make their Christmas bonuses for making record highs on the indexes this years, expect things to deflate rather quickly.
<

although 2007 has nothing to do with the facts in this discussion, fwiw I am in agreement as to what 2007 holds...for a large number of reasons.

 

Originally Posted By vbdad55

<No one has been able to 'splain it to this simple Nordstrom shopper. I wish someone would.
<

Executive Greed.....period

 

Originally Posted By mrichmondj

<<< Disney wasn't going to be taken over by anyone in the late 90s. Wasn't going to happen. Remember, the stock (while still undervalued) was much higher than it is now.

I guess I am just a rube (albeit one who drives really kewl cars and stays in nice hotels ... a lot!), but I can't understand why Go.com, DRE, the Angels and Mighty Ducks, payouts to execs from Michael Ovitz to Jeffrey Katzenberg to Nina Jacobson etc ... are all fine uses of billions of dollars of MY company's $$$, but investment and reinvestment in core businesses like theme parks, resorts and animation isn't. No one has been able to 'splain it to this simple Nordstrom shopper. I wish someone would. >>>

You don't care to hear the explanation, nor do you understand it.

Yahoo! and AOL had more liquidity than Disney in the 90s. So did Microsoft. Disney was a big takeover target, and the Wall Street guys were very eager to get hold of the Disney cash flow.

Wall Street would love to get a buyout of Disney today and break it apart into pieces. Comcast would have loved to buy Disney so that they could grab cash from ESPN, and I doubt they would have diverted any of that cash to theme parks.

Look how quickly Dreamworks sold out to Wall Street when it came time to cash out. The utopian film studio is now just a shell company for GE. Dreamworks Animation is next on the chopping block.

How many times has Universal been bought and sold over the last 20 years.

Of course, maybe Disney could just have easily dumped billions of more dollars into theme parks. There wouldn't be any increase in attendance or revenue by doing that, so the stock price would be the same or lower, but what the heck?

As for the mobile phone ventures -- I think they are absolutely necessary for the broadcast business to remain viable. They are being very poorly executed and I don't think the folks running those ventures really have any clue how to innovate in mobile communications. It's a shame, because the broadcast business will be in real trouble if Disney doesn't find a way to get their content on mobile airwaves and online to the maximum number of eyeballs.

 

Originally Posted By vbdad55

^^
no different than the off shoring of millions of American jobs, under some guise of a world market....

Companies moving hundreds of thousands of jobs to Brazil in the last few years....why ? because the labor rate is basically 3rd world, has nothing to do with a global market, just profits at any cost, including the futures of our children.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<When I stay at the WL or DAK Lodge, I can go two days without setting foot in a park. >>

>>Don't take this the wrong way but could it be an age thing? I still struggle to sit still at any opportunity so the thought of not doing something park (whether one of the four or the water parks) is a real struggle for me. But then so much of what I do now is just wander around and make notes. Take the place in. The days of running from attraction-to-attraction are long gone. Unless it is DL's Space!>>

Well, I am assuming we are both in our 30s, correct? So I don't think age is an issue.

But I can't imagine staying at DAK Lodge and just using it to sleep (and maybe see a zebra) while I'm having my morning coffee at 5:45 a.m. so I can be at the MK for early entry only to return at 10 p.m and go to bed.

I do few that as 'crazy' (not clinically as I am not a certified shrink, just have decades of viewing abnormal behavior amnongst fellow humans!)

Disney builds some amazing resorts. They attract me in some ways more than the parks. Now, I can spend a whole day just wandering thru DAK or Epcot just taking it all in.

But I can also spend a whole day on the beach at the Poly and not look across the lagoon longingly thinking 'Why am I not on that relic Space Mountain or that poorly maintained Haunted Mansion?'

<<I now spend more and more time at DAK and far less time at the MK ... and almost no time at the Studios because of the FRESH/STALE deal.>>

>>>I couldn't guess accurately but I would guess that DAK is vying with Epcot for the most visited in my time but then that is more a testamony to its development. It is probably pretty close though (especially over the past 10 years). DAK is the real gem. I hope when you get to see HKDL that you get a DAK vibe from it. D-MGm would be next but then I'm a monster fan of the streetmosphere. Can stand there for hours just watching them do their stuff. MK is rock-bottom. Just not my thing at all.>>>

I have already seen a DAK look in many pics of HKDL's Adventureland. I can't wait to experience it. And I agree that DAK is a real gem. It's absolutely the best thing stateside to come from Eisner's last years at the company. But I do worry that without JR overseeing everything that management will try and dumb that park down too.

And you find the MK rock bottom?

Wow. I need to print this post out and enlarge!

Very sadly, I agree. Most visits there are of the 3-4 variety before I get bored nowadays.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74


<<Gee, thanks! Every community has to have it's Eeyore! ;-)>>

I always fancied myself an Eeyore.

You're more of a Chicken Little or maybe ... a Doc Kevorkian? ;-)

 

Originally Posted By mrichmondj

Maybe a Scrooge McDuck?

 

Originally Posted By vbdad55

<They are being very poorly executed and I don't think the folks running those ventures really have any clue how to innovate in mobile communications.<

BINGO ! It's go.com all over again. there is a product and a market...yet they have no clue how to tap into it.

 

Originally Posted By mrichmondj

For what it's worth, Disney also integrated the management of Starwave with Go.com at the time of the buyout. At the time, Starwave was running some of the most successful subscription based sites on the internet (ESPN being the largest). To say that Disney didn't bother to partner with anyone or seek out expertise is a little bit shortsighted.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<Hey, don't be dissin' the 2002 Camry's. My aught-two RAV4 is a great little SUV, and is about to take me on my Christmas Dan Across America Tour, to L.A. (Disneyland!!!), Idaho and back to Dallas. >>

There was no dissin Danny ... just offering a thought.

And too bad you're going to DL at Christmas ... the Spirit will be there the first week in January!

<<And kennect, if you're still here, I can see how some of this discussion puts you off. I begin to lose interest when people start comparing their Mercedes and Westin experiences. I don't think they were being snooty about it, but I can sure see how it might get to you!>>

That's just your natural (and well-earned, IMHO) inferiority complex kicking in, Dan.

But if you'd like to discuss your Toyota and Comfort Inn experiences, I am all ears ... go ahead

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<I didn't have to go through Customs, but I was treated pretty much the same way by TSA personnel at LAX. I think they get their jollies by trying to intimidate people.>>

It isn't just LAX. And you can thank anyone who voted for the dude that lives at 1600 ... just keep the populice in constant fear and you can take away all their rights ...

 

Originally Posted By vbdad55

<Wall Street would love to get a buyout of Disney today and break it apart into pieces. Comcast would have loved to buy Disney so that they could grab cash from ESPN, and I doubt they would have diverted any of that cash to theme parks.
<

while it's true ESPN is the cash cow everyone wants...just who on Wall Street wants Disney broken into pieces ? Surely not the major investors who just want to earn a modest profit in their portfolio's from Disney. Does anyone else really care about any one company ?

<Of course, maybe Disney could just have easily dumped billions of more dollars into theme parks. There wouldn't be any increase in attendance or revenue by doing that, so the stock price would be the same or lower, but what the heck?
<

would be different than setting is on fire for go.com how ? Disney still has to maintain the edge for it's parks for future and repeat business from a clientele not spoon fed on Disney as my generation was....stop investing in the parks and keep blowing money of ventures you have no expertise in, and that will be endangered.

 

Originally Posted By mrichmondj

Sounds like what people were saying when Walt Disney wanted to blow a whole lot of money on Disneyland instead making more Cinderella movies.

 

Originally Posted By vbdad55

<To say that Disney didn't bother to partner with anyone or seek out expertise is a little bit shortsighted.<

as you told someone in an earlier post they didn't understand....I am in the industry and may have more insight into what they did and didn't do re: IT partnering...it has as much to do with supporting the infrastructure for such a venture as the spark of imagination for what they want to do.....very recently they decided to let another very large IT company run this area of the business for them....

Utilizing expert knowledge while protecting your investment ( media content) - is a balance....no one can do it all alone.

 

Originally Posted By mrichmondj

I don't dispute that at all. I just never found the go.com venture to be one that Disney was taking all that seriously -- outside of the seriousness that if they didn't do it the company would no longer exist as an autonomous entity. I am familiar enough with the business climate of the time to know that the Disney board was more concerned about a takeover than they were about succeeding as an internet portal. Michael Eisner stated on several occasions that he was not interested in becoming an internet portal, and wanted to be a content creator -- then all of a sudden they buy infoseek and starwave. It wasn't a coincidence that Yahoo! and Microsoft were both very close to making Disney a takeover target at the exact same time.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

I just see so many execs at Disney ... and so many Wall Street pundits ... and so many consultants all wanting to BREAK Disney and remake it as something different.

That's what Eisner tried in his last decade and it didn't work.

I don't think Disney needs to be at the frontier of new platforms. I think Disney needs to be at the forefront of providing amazing, compelling creative content be it theme park attractions, animated features or TV shows.

No one is going to convince me otherwise. No one is going to tell me that Disney will get swallowed up if it focuses on what makes it unique instead of branching out into all kinds of businesses.

That makes as much sense to me as the words 'stay the course' do. None.

Disney is what it is. When people try to force it into other ventures, instead of natural evolutions, I get very worried.

I see New Coke and Old Go.com ;-)

But again, what do I know? I think a company's longterm financial future is a helluva lot more important than the next quarter or even the next year.

 

Originally Posted By vbdad55

<Sounds like what people were saying when Walt Disney wanted to blow a whole lot of money on Disneyland instead making more Cinderella movies.<

um no...the studios were not neglected while the new venture took place. WDW has suffered quality hits over the past 10+ years .....

Also there was nothing like DL, so there was no one to get expertise from as there has been with the recent ventures that have taken a beating.

 

Originally Posted By mrichmondj

Well considering that all the established "expertise" at the time got overran by an upstart called Google, I'm not sure the experts would have been any good at making Go.com succeed either.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<I am familiar enough with the business climate of the time to know that the Disney board was more concerned about a takeover than they were about succeeding as an internet portal. Michael Eisner stated on several occasions that he was not interested in becoming an internet portal, and wanted to be a content creator -- then all of a sudden they buy infoseek and starwave. It wasn't a coincidence that Yahoo! and Microsoft were both very close to making Disney a takeover target at the exact same time.>>

If this really was Eisner's feelings then he should have been tossed out on his a$$ back then.

He should have had the company firing on all cylinders so Disney wasn't in a position to even attract a sniff of a takeover proposal.

And again, I know same story, that comes from core businesses. An Internet portal isn'nt one anymore than a hockey team is or regional kiddie playlands are.