Disney closing ESPN Zones nationwide

I have a hard time feeling sorry for the mouse and love Disney-bashing as much as the next guy, but this is hardly a case of incompetent or poor management. The economy is rough out there for any disposable income related business. What you see in the restaurants and malls is still activity, but the overall spend is less. The average debt of families in the U.S. has also dropped. So not only are folks not incurring new debt, they're working to pay off old debt, hence not spending as much.

Our restaurant is down significantly from where we were even a year ago (remember unemployment is a lagging indicator). We're still keeping our heads above water, but that's due to reduced hours for our employees and increased hours for my wife and I. Our food distributors and other folks we know in the restaurant business are confirming what we see in our numbers. Also, two major local suppliers (one for bread, one for produce) that have been in business in Hampton Roads for over twenty years went out of business in the last 3-4 months. Our major supplier has cut its prices to push out our secondary supplier.

When you see Pizza Hut, Papa John's, etc. $ 10 pizza deals go away, then the economy is getting better.


Disney had 3.3 billion dollars in profit last year and has 3.4 billion cash on hand, I think they can carry the chain through rough times. Their mistake was to simply rely on brand name to carry their restaurant. I can get better food and more beer choice at my local bar at better prices so why would I go in to a Zone?

I admittedly have no idea how Disney operates as a company but they run the biggest resort in the world don't they? And make tons on it? Is that sector of their business just totally separate??? because they seem to have that stuff set up pretty well. I guess it is a different thing all together.


I consider the park itself a different entity then the hotels/restaurants. The properties at the parks do well it is when you start pulling away from the park that they struggle. They started in the entertainment business and then theme parks which obviously is their strong suit so much so that they are able to dabble in lots of other ventures. Basically retail,hotels, restaurants, cruise ships, etc... are all secondary sources of income for them but they all help drive the Disney name so if they fall behind it is not such a black eye for Disney becasue the revenue from entertainment/theme parks can cover up a lot of those sins but now that the economy is tanking hard for them to cover up.

I like how they blame the bad economy and not their bad food and prices. If it was the economy then how come other chain stores are not closing their doors? A bad economy just weeds out the bad places faster.

Yeah, I went to the Inner Harbor one a few years ago, wasn't impressed.