Disney stands to miss out on a half-billion dollars in revenue from theme park closures

Yeah but they made most of that back with Disney + ,30,000,000 X (7 X 12=) 84 (a year)=$2,520,000,000

That should take some of the sting out

They were counting on that as new income, not replacing missed income from somewhere else. The idea is to grow the business. There's no sting coming out of this.

I wonder if all of this will make Disney hate poor people less?

Or :gasp: actually like them?

For a little while, it just might. Remember the post-9/11 period when they were doing a buy 4 get 3 free with their packages?

And, it's not just the parks and cruise lines: the four major segments of the business are: Travel (cruise, parks, hotels, timeshare); television (mostly ESPN but also ABC and a little Disney Channel); theatrical; and consumer products.

Three of those are hosed. We know about the travel bit here already. It doesn't really help to be The Worldwide Leader in Sports when there are no live sports. Not too many movie theaters open right now, either. That leaves consumer products, which has been the laggard for as long as I've been reading their financial statements.

Disney+ will help a little but some of those subscriptions were discounted (I think I paid $170 for three years pre-paid vs. list of $210) or free (Verizon customers).

Possibly more ominous: it's possible that a lot of people will discover they can live without live sports, and that's more or less the only reason I can think of to continue subscribing to a cable/satellite channel bundle. Even skinny bundles are $40-$50/month, with a low limit on simultaneous streams. If the real/virtual cord-cutting accelerates, ESPN is in very big trouble. They are on the hook for some very expensive rights fees for the next many years.

Brian Noble said:

Possibly more ominous: it's possible that a lot of people will discover they can live without live sports, and that's more or less the only reason I can think of to continue subscribing to a cable/satellite channel bundle.

I don't know about this. Sports has lasted for, literally, thousands of years. It's survived other disease outbreaks, wars, and strikes. While this is the first time all sports were out, every sport has had its share of a shortened season, and yet people still came back to watch.

I suspect you'll lose some viewers, but it would be the same blip any other form of entertainment will find.

When the Browns left Cleveland, I found other things to do on Sundays. I never came back when the Browns came back. Though it was question whether they were playing a recognizable sport when they left (or after they came back for that matter). So its not necessarily apples to apples. LOL

Brian Noble said:

Possibly more ominous: it's possible that a lot of people will discover they can live without live sports, and that's more or less the only reason I can think of to continue subscribing to a cable/satellite channel bundle.

I heard a similar discussion concerning the restaurant business. Many people that relied heavily on restaurants for meals, be it going out or take out, are cooking at home now, my house included. It was not unusual for us to have dinner out or have take out 3-4 night a week, sometimes more at busy times like the beginning of the school year, the holidays, or busy kid activity weeks. There's a good chance that, like me, a large number of people are discovering that, with some planning ahead, cooking at home is more convenient and more affordable in most cases. Combine that with the fact that the mom and pop, locally owned restaurants are going to fail through this crisis and with a lot of speculation that high debt, private equity driven expansion by mediocre chains is going to come to a head and you might have a very different looking restaurant industry in a year or two.

yawetag said:

While this is the first time all sports were out

I think this is the thing. In all of those other instances, there was something else (conveniently enough, on ESPN) to turn to. Now, there just isn't--The Ocho aside. And yes, many people will come back. But some people won't. The interesting question is: how many.

Those rights fees are modeled based on a bunch of assumptions about how fast ESPN loses viewers, and how much advertisers will pay for one of the last things you almost have to watch in real time to really enjoy. If that rate of loss changes in a material way, suddenly that advertising revenue starts drying up, and those rights fees look awfully steep.