DISNEY DITCHES DUCKS FRANCISE SOLD TO O.C. MILLIONAIRE.Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff WriterThe Walt Disney Noun 1. Walt Disney - United States film maker who pioneered animated cartoons and created such characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck; founded Disneyland (1901-1966) Disney, Walter Elias Disney Co. jumped into the professional sports The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. arena with high hopes in the early 1990s, first with the Mighty Ducks
Mighty Ducks is a half-hour Disney animated series aired on ABC and The Disney Afternoon in the fall of 1996. Twenty-six episodes total were produced. of Anaheim then a few years later with the Angels baseball team. There had been such heady talk of the potential for tourism synergy opportunities between the two sports teams and the Anaheim theme parks, Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure Disney's California Adventure is a theme park in Anaheim, California, adjacent to Disneyland Park and part of the larger Disneyland Resort. It opened on February 8, 2001. The park is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company. . One plan even called for a Monorail monorail, railway system that uses cars that run on a single rail. Typically the rail is run overhead and the cars are either suspended from it or run above it. to someday connect Disneyland with The Arrowhead Pond and the nearby Big A. Barely a decade later the Angels were shed from the company's portfolio and on Friday Disney severed ties with the Ducks, selling the National Hockey League National Hockey League (NHL) Organization of professional North American ice-hockey teams. The league was formed in 1917 by five Canadian teams; the first U.S. team, the Boston Bruins, was added in 1924. It today consists of 30 teams in two conferences and six divisions. franchise to Orange County millionaire Henry Samueli for an undisclosed price. ``They tried to extend the Disney brand name across all kinds of entertainment in Anaheim,'' said Rod Fort, a sports economist with Washington State University Washington State University, at Pullman; land-grant and state supported; chartered 1890, opened 1892 as an agriculture college. From 1905 to 1959 it was the State College of Washington. . ``They owned everything else in Anaheim so why not the baseball team and the hockey team with all that brand-name recognition? You have this idea and it doesn't mean it will pay off. They are deciding to move on and do other things with their dollars.'' Phoenix investor Arte Moreno bought the baseball team in 2003 and over the past off-season renamed it the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim For the pre-1958 Pacific Coast League team, see . The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are a professional baseball team based in Anaheim, California. The Angels are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. , which has irked leaders and fans on both sides of the county line. Samueli, whose company operates the Arrowhead Pond where the Ducks play their home games, pledged to keep the team in Orange County if the NHL NHL Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, see there approves the sale. That's likely to take a back seat while the NHL, which canceled its full season earlier this month, negotiates a new contract. Friday's deal with Samueli, a West Hollywood native who made his fortune as co-founder of computer-chip maker Broadcom Inc., caps an era of corporate diversification, said media analyst Paul Kim. ``All these entertainment companies wanted to expand beyond core areas for synergy and growth and have tried different things,'' said Kim, of Tradition Asiel Securities Inc. ``But as the industry has evolved over the last 10 to 20 years, it's clear that maybe a licensing strategy works but operating physical assets probably doesn't.'' Fort said that when Disney launched the Mighty Ducks franchise in conjunction with a popular series of ``Mighty Ducks'' movies, ``it was one of the most successful marketing tags in the history of sports. ``But now there is a generation that might not even remember that there were these 'Mighty Ducks' movies,'' Fort said. ``It could be that the value of that tie had just run out and they have made the money they are going to make with it.'' Even the first-ever World Series title won by the Angels in 2002 wasn't enough to persuade Disney to keep the baseball team in which it bought a majority stake in 1996 then purchased outright two years later. For their part, the Ducks went to the Stanley Cup finals during the 2002-2003 season. But Disney did not waver in its determination to pare itself back down to its core entertainment business of theme parks, movies and television. ``Right now, Wall Street wants focused companies because it is a time not of growth, but of consolidation and retrenchment re·trench·ment n. The cutting away of superfluous tissue. ,'' Kim said. ``I think the thinking of large media conglomerates now is that sports ownership is not core to their businesses.'' Greg Hernandez, (818) 713-3758 greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com HENRY SAMUELI Age: 49 Net worth: $1.8 billion Forbes rank: 310 Residence: Newport Beach The UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX graduate and Newport Beach resident founded high-speed chip-maker Broadcom Inc. in 1991. Along with his wife, he is a major philanthropist for Orange County arts. - SOURCE: Daily News research CAPTION(S): 2 photo, box Photo: (1 -- color) HENRY SAMUELI Michael Kitada/The Orange County Register (2) A sparse crowd watches as the Anaheim Mighty Ducks play the Montreal Canadiens in 2001. Billionaire Henry Samueli said Friday that Disney has agreed to sell him the Ducks. John Hayes/Associated Press Box: HENRY SAMUELI (see text) |
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