Some day Mickey and the rest will start entering public domain. Disney has been good at getting the laws changed, but I think it will get harder and harder. I don't know what the law is up to now, but when they fail to get it extended and you start seeing Mickey opening up your new Wal Mart, that is when you will see disney first off load operations of the theme parks, then outright sell them.
Looks like that is set for 2023, right now. I would expect Disney to seek (and probably win) another 20 year extension...but we'll see. Supreme court has already ruled on constitutionality of extensions (Eldred v Ashcroft). Maybe, at some point, there's some objection (in government), but I don't see it happening soon.
I see WDW as three items to consmers, Rides, shows, characters, I see them as having equal importance to drawing crowds(this is only from listening to people). You get rid of 1/3 of your draw, and you loose 1/3 of your value. I see WDW as two things to corporate 1/2 cash generater, 1/2 advertisement machine. So if people see 1/3 of the value go away(because they can see Mickey everywhere now) that will be when they stop going and the corporation see a decline in revenues and not as many eyes to advertise to.
I agree, mostly. I think thats one of the reasons you see Disney continuing to try to develop/push new IP's...so that they will almost always have SOMETHING, in the way of an IP, that they can market via the parks (and other avenues) Obviously, having the sway of Mickey and the Gang is still the big draw, though. I'm not sure you'd lose 1/3 of your draw when losing Mickey and the gang (because there are other pieces to that third), but I agree..that 1/3 of the draw would take a significant hit.
I know by simply getting rid of Pleasure Island the Value of a Disney vacation has been reduced for me and I have started looking elsewhere. I don't think Disney understands or maybe just doesn't care that they are already dangerously close to hitting that point with a lot of people. Which may be why they are having trouble getting enough companies to rent space on PI. If they ahd enough companies ready to shell out money to lease space it would not be sitting there empty, they would get them in ASAP. I truly believe PI closeing hit them harder than they thought, even without the downturn in global tourism.
Again, I mostly agree. I do think you might overestimate the importance of PI to the average traveler. I also think your reasoning is a bit "off". Disney wanted to clear out the locals (which is funny...because they were the ones that caused the problem by making PI "free", when it used to be a seperate admission). They also wanted to cut salary. staff, benefits, and their overall commitment to staffing (because they needed to cut bait to make their shareholders smile).
But they picked the worst time, economically, to do it. The types of establishments they were looking to bring in simply weren't expanding or opening new retail locations. They were all doing the same thing Disney was. So a plan to stand back, let others spend the development cost, and simply rake in the "free money" for location/real estate was short sighted, at best. And, even when it became apparent it was a bad decision...they didn't reverse course. That's a lack of corporate vision and bad leadership (something I've accused the WDW execs of in the past), all the way around.
Now it's just an eyesore....which might be worse than they were, originally, footing the bill and dealing with the locals.
Here we go, start getting rid of all unique items (PI, Souviniers)(loose some draw), your characters are now Public domain and can be seen all around the country(no need to travel to see Mickey), all your adults grew up on face book(need instant cheap satisfaction), make all of their purcahses online(don't like shopping in the 100s of stores selling identicle merchandise), are making an income the same dollar amount as their parents even though the value of the dollar is only 2/3s(you actually make less), you can go to six flags for rides(getting to florida costs too much).
Homogenization isn't new, and it's not particular to Disney corporate. It's a bottom line saver, I suspect, in their eyes. I suspect (but don't know) that they're not seeing enough of a hit to merch sales to think it's a bad idea, either.
As a consumer, I'd be happier with more unique offerings...for sure. And I"m sure there are other consumers who feel the same way. I'm just not sure that we all stop buying the homogenized offerings enough to send DISNEY the message.
All this equals a decline in WDW and an eventual sell off, never mind building new parks.
Eventually, maybe, someday. Not soon, I dont' think. They do seem to be testing the water on "rake in free money, let others do the work" in several different ways. But they've also had varying success with it. And, lets face it, right now the parks division makes some serious cash for Disney...and they'd need a VERY compelling reason to let that money go. You'd have to, essentially, give them a similar revenue stream (slightly less since there would be no risk or outlay costs...so the money would be significantly "cheaper), yearly, to get them to sell. Plus you'd have to pay them a mint for the actual holdings/real estate/assets. I'm not sure how many companies could manage that investment, fee schedule, and still manage to operate the resort(s) at a profit.
I'm also not sure how the stockholders would see the divestment. One thing many institutional investors like is how diversified Disney is in the industry. The parks is a big part of that. You don't want to hobble your stock....
What I would be LESS surprised to see is this: Disney maintaining ownership but "partnering" with an outside company to actually run the day to day, investing capital, etc....with the partner taking a larger share of the profits, but Disney still getting some (and maintaining a modicum of control). That would offset the need for any company to outlay the initial HUGE amount of money necessary to purchase the existing WDW resort.
