Let the fun and games begin - Reedy Creek (News)

The problem is who gets to define wrong.  When your customer base is split on the defintion of wrong, keep your mouth (or your marketing department) quiet.  

Iger has one job, to return shareholder value.  he is failing miserably as did his predecessor...

Actually, unless they list themselves as a B Corp nope, they are to build shareholder wealth.  Do do anything else puts them out of compliance.

Rigby, a happy workforce is part of returning shareholder wealth.  They cannot generate that return without good employees.  The problem with taking a political stance is a workforce almost always mimics the views of the general public, which in the case last year that caused Reedy Creek means they chose a segment of their workforce over another segment.  Good leaders and BOD's should never do that.  Disney's did.  And now that issue is ongoing.  

I think no one here is going to change very obvious political biases - though I appreciate how kind people are being as I really hope we can remain polite since quite a few are discussing politics and not the issues at hand.

This is the part of the analysis that I think a lot of people miss. Last year there was a distinct difference in how people viewed Florida's law. Some agreed and some disagreed. It was a pretty even split. And that included the cast members. The most vocal cast members coming out against it were in California. Frankly I find their opinion irrelevant because they're not in Florida. They were not affected by that law. However I did take note at the time Chapek was moving The imagineering department from California to Florida. And that caused a lot of discord in the California workbase.

Now imagine you were one of those employees who not only was faced with having to move across the country or lose your job and then this subject comes up. You're going to be very loud. It's going to make you want to fight Florida even more. And I think that's what happened. Chapek tried to divert criticism of him for all these decisions by appeasing this very vocal unhappy workforce as of it was the entire workforce. It wasn't. The walkouts were in California not Florida. That tells me he completely ignored the other workforce that was not unhappy. And that's the mistake made. When a company comes out in a stance that ostracizes one half of their work base in favor of the other, they're going to have issues. Then you look at what their core customer base is and you can have another problem on your hands.

I appreciate the position of the advocates. I know from their point of view this was an absolute injustice. I had a different interpretation of the situation. As a customer, a DVC owner and a shareholder, I didn't want Disney corporation to take a stand either way. I wanted them to be welcoming to both sides of the argument. I wanted them to respect the people of Florida to make their own decisions. I did not want them to turn into a political action committee.

I remind you the Florida law was very popular in Florida. This came off as California telling Florida what to do. That's never going to end well.

And that's when I looked at the fairness of one theme park company having a special district when their direct competitors in town never had that advantage. Why should Disney have such autonomy when Universal and SeaWorld do not? Does it really hurt them to not have this autonomy? They're competitors seem to thrive.

Now as for what the Reedy Creek board did, I'll leave that up to the lawyers. I think it was a last minute bait and switch. On the same token I don't think putting in toll roads is anything more than a threat. It wouldn't hurt the company. It would hurt the customers. And it does look very petty and retalitorial. That's why I think it's just an empty threat. At the end of the day Florida politicians want the income that tourists bring. A few points on a political opinion poll is going to mean very little if their actions drop that revenue.

Right now I see this as a game of chicken between two heavy weight fighters. Both are trying to say they have the most influence over the public. But they run the risk of being so caught up in that fight they ostracized the public.

Whether or not you agree with the political position Disney took is irrelevant. The issue is the obvious retaliation due to that position. 

As far as the fairness of the Reedy Creek district, none of the other theme parks would be there if Disney had not done the work to make central Florida a place that so many tourists wanted to go. Even that is irrelevant though. 

If the Florida legislature had looked into this issue of “is it fair if Disney has Reedy Creek but other companies do not have something similar” years ago and the legislature and Disney worked together to come up with a mutually satisfactory solution, I do not
think that there would be an issue at all.

The issue is that the FL governor decided that it would make himself look tough on Woke, if he took over Reedy Creek, not because he cared about the “fairness” of it at all but because he and the board that he put in of his political friends, thought that they could have some power over Disney content through threats of messing with their infrastructure. They basically said as much.

That is the real issue…