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ESPN cleans house

Colonel Angus said:
$350MM in fed funding represents approximately 0.025% of Florida's $1.4T in GDP.

In addition, FL ranks 38th in the state federal dependency ranking (https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/) as only 20% of state revenue is derived from federal funding.

How will the state of FL ever survive this???

Better vote Andrew Gillum in 2024!!
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Comparing it to GDP doesn't really matter in this context because it's for a specific purpose that isn't happening without that funding. It's not like they're saying "oh we just aren't taking the funding and doing it ourselves", it means it's not happening at all.

With Federal funding in general: About 34% of their budget comes from federal funding (https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/polit...ends-from-the-federal-government-yes/2995371/). It's been noted that he's benefited pretty well from federal relief (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...w's Observed Rent,over 50% increases in rents.) and it's been consistently noted that fights with Disney along with laws that are starting to hurt the workforces that grew during COVID aren't exactly great ideas.

They also pretty consistently have lagged behind in wage increases and disposable income (https://www.tampabay.com/news/flori...sident-economy-unemployment-wages-politifact/)
 
Cam with the receipts as somehow a discussion of ESPN layoffs turns into Florida politics.
 
mako1331 said:
Disney’s political stances are motivated by what they think is best for the bottom line, just like every other corporation on earth.
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Many corporate boards are heavily influenced by institutional investors. Vanguard, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock all have tremendous sway over corporate direction. Public companies are seldom autonomous in charting their "best interests". There are many agendas that must be fulfilled when running a publicly held company. How do I know this to be true? I was the CFO of a publicly traded company for about 15 years of my career. In fact, Blackrock seeks seats on boards where they have sufficient interest.

I'm not saying it's good or bad or making political statements. Just stating how the sausage is often made.
 
TheAbster said:
Many corporate boards are heavily influenced by institutional investors. Vanguard, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock all have tremendous sway over corporate direction. Public companies are seldom autonomous in charting their "best interests". There are many agendas that must be fulfilled when running a publicly held company. How do I know this to be true? I was the CFO of a publicly traded company for about 15 years of my career. In fact, Blackrock seeks seats on boards where they have sufficient interest.

I'm not saying it's good or bad or making political statements. Just stating how the sausage is often made.
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What do you think Vanguard, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and Blackrock are interested in?
 
BeachBumDeac said:
What do you think Vanguard, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and Blackrock are interested in?
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It can depend upon the fund, it's objective and if it has serious equity in that company. Some funds are heavily skewed toward ESG. Others are more weighted with other objectives. Some that are more fixed-income focused are heavily driven by preservation of capital and will seek strong free-cash-flows and high dividends and don't give a rat's ass about ESG. They just want that dividend.

Like most things in life. It all depends upon the objective. These are enormous institutions with multiple objectives seeking to derive maximum benefit for their constituents (aka shareholders).

Point is: Disney and many others can have a "save the world mentality" and there's nothing wrong with that. That can be noble in itself. But "people" who actually OWN the company may have different ideas and can heavily influence direction.
 
TheAbster said:
It can depend upon the fund, it's objective and if it has serious equity in that company. Some funds are heavily skewed toward ESG. Others are more weighted with other objectives. Some that are more fixed-income focused are heavily driven by preservation of capital and will seek strong free-cash-flows and high dividends and don't give a rat's ass about ESG. They just want that dividend.

Like most things in life. It all depends upon the objective. These are enormous institutions with multiple objectives seeking to derive maximum benefit for their constituents (aka shareholders).

Point is: Disney and many others can have a "save the world mentality" and there's nothing wrong with that. That can be noble in itself. But "people" who actually OWN the company may have different ideas and can heavily influence direction.
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I think the point is that corporations are out to make money…period. Any of the ethical decisions being discussed are in the interest of improving the bottom line.
 
WindyCityDeac said:
I think the point is that corporations are out to make money…period. Any of the ethical decisions being discussed are in the interest of improving the bottom line.
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I don't think I stated otherwise. It's just some take different paths toward that objective and are influenced heavily to take certain paths. I interfaced with many of them yearly if not weekly. Actually made some friendships along the way.

But when someone has a controlling seat on your BOD you damn well will listen.
 
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Liquid Karma said:
You mean a family of four doesn't want to pay 1k/day to stand in line during the Florida summer? No way...

Park attendance is a function of price, not politics.
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Price and a range of other factors.
 
You can't really divorce decreased attendance at Disney from decreased travel/tourism to Florida. I, for example, like Disney and want to support them... but I won't be setting state in Florida for the foreseeable future.


Universal Studios also experiencing slight decline in attendance in the last few weeks FWIW:
 
bym051d said:
Such as exhaustion of pent up demand from Covid.

But it's probably wokeness.
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Right. Revenge travel is the biggest factor. They got a bump in 2021 and 2022 as everyone got in the trips they couldn't take due to the pandemic. As a result, Disney got a ton of revenue from the parks. They used the parks as a piggy bank for the rest of the company (Disney+ and FOX purchase debt) and didn't invest in new attractions. Now they only have Tron to attract people who already visited in 2021 and 2022 so attendance is down. They'll probably be hurting for the foreseeable future because they have no big new attractions on the horizon (not counting the Splash redo into Tiana's) and Universal will eat their lunch when Epic Universe opens in 2025.

The big issue for ESPN is when they will drop their standalone subscription service. They've been teasing it for awhile.
 
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