Disney and Florida, especially Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), have been at loggerheads for a year and a half after the state proposed and later passed the Parental Rights in Education bill. Intellectually bankrupt Democrats seized on one provision in the law and falsely dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which the media fell for and ran with.
Then-CEO (and miserable leadership failure) Bob Chapek got involved at the prompting of LGBTQ (and sometimes Y) and other left-wing cast members and “paused” the company’s political donations to both Republicans and Democrats. Then the company spoke out even more, alienating guests who saw the company as woke and leaving cast members who don’t buy into the Pride Cult without a voice.
As DeSantis and state legislators were trying to figure out a way to teach Disney a lesson for meddling in state politics, they discovered that Disney had taken advantage of the special quasi-governmental authority the state gave it in 1967. The Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), under which Disney essentially governed its own property, had run its course, so the state established a new district with a new board to oversee the property.
On its way out the door, the RCID board enacted a series of covenants and agreements that sought to allow Disney to maintain power over the district while hamstringing the new Central Florida Tourist Oversight District (CFTOD) board. This led to a series of lawsuits between Disney and DeSantis and the state, which are still going on.
Recommended Disney History Lesson: Walt Disney’s Fascinating Political Journey
All the while, the mainstream media has used the situation between DeSantis and Disney as an opportunity to issue hit pieces against the governor. When Disney canceled a billion-dollar project that would move the company’s Imagineering division from California to Florida, the media pounced on the announcement to attack DeSantis for his policies, when the reasons for the cancellation were economic concerns and the fact that Imagineers didn’t want to uproot their families.
Some “experts” claimed that this move meant that Disney would give up on investing in Florida altogether. WUSF reported in May that one expert told Florida Public Radio that “the company could pull an additional $17 billion dollars that’s earmarked for the Orlando theme parks over the next decade.”
As we’ve seen so many times in recent years, the “experts” were wrong. On Tuesday, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) filed its intention to invest $60 billion in its tourism properties with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission, not the Southeastern Conference — sorry, football fans).
The Walt Disney Company is providing the following update regarding its plans for capital expenditures at its Disney Parks, Experiences and Products (“DPEP”) segment. The Company is developing plans to accelerate and expand investment in its DPEP segment, to nearly double, as compared to the previous approximately 10-year period, consolidated capital expenditures for the segment over the course of an approximately 10-year period to approximately $60 billion in aggregate, including by investing in expanding and enhancing domestic and international parks and cruise line capacity, prioritizing projects anticipated to generate strong returns, consistent with the Company’s continuing approach to allocate capital in a disciplined and balanced manner.
That’s a whopping number, but guess what? That figure includes investments in Disney’s Florida properties. Walt Disney World figures prominently in the slides on the filing, including new cabins for Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and a massive new high-rise hotel adjacent to Disney’s Polynesian Resort. Disney Cruise Line has a prominent place in the filing as well, and many of its ships sail out of Port Canaveral.
Let’s not overlook that this is a huge win for Florida and DeSantis. It shows that Disney isn’t giving up on Florida regardless of any political and legal maneuverings it’s involved in. After all, Disney is a business that’s in this to make money, and no amount of virtue-signaling will change that.
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