The ex-CEO of the Disney company is twisting reality to soothe his bruised ego.
Bob Chapek is one of the worst CEOs in Disney history. Scratch that – THE worst CEO in Disney history. Some of been ineffective. Some have been passive. Some have been sensational – and then spent too long in the position. But Chapek was horrible. To be fair, he was saddled with the COVID epidemic which could excuse some of his mistakes, but overall he is a money-grubbing manager with no real vision for the company.
In an article from the Orange Country Register summarizing his new book, Chapek wrote that he was focused on “elite” visitors to the parks which is how he justified the outrageous prices for VIP tours from $500 to $800 an hour. Sure, that might have been a money maker for those who could afford it, but bottom line, that in no way outstripped the total value brought by the 1.1 million Magic Key holders (according to Chapek) who paid an average of $905 per ticket. That’s nearly 1 BILLION dollars in revenue annually for the company from Disneyland alone. Were there $1B worth of VIP tours? I doubt it.
And with the reservation system, there were absolutely no guests from out-of-state who were denied entry just because of the passholders. So Disney was not missing out on this vital market. Instead the Magic Key holders were supplementing the profits the company needed from the theme parks division when so many other aspects of the company were failing including movies and Disney+. Chapek was so bad at figuring out the other aspects of the company that he relied on theme parks to be the revenue generator and Magic Key holders were a big part of that.
What made Chapek so reviled was his nickel and diming of Disney guests. Everything had a price tag on it. Not just the premium experiences. Fastpass, the much beloved ride reservation system, disappeared under Chapek using the COVID crisis as cover to be replaced with Genie+ and Lightning Lane. And while Fastpass certainly had its issues, the egalitarian nature of it was certainly missed. When Lightning Lanes became available it was more of Disney’s pay-to-play rearing its ugly head. And it only got worse. On top of that, long promised attractions like the Avengers Quinjet attraction and the Mary Poppins attraction kept getting shelved citing the need for more revenue when theme parks were raking in the money. It all felt very disingenuous.
Chapek likes to point out that he made money for the company and he surely did. What was contested was his complete lack of understanding for what his rabid base (Disney Nerds like us) really wanted. We wanted an executive who cared about Walt’s vision, who was inspired to carry it on, and who treated guests as visitors and not cash cows. Had Chapek REALLY cared about the guest experience, he would not have complained about the number of passholders while swelling their ranks. He would have capped reservations and limited them even more so that every time you went in the park it did not feel like swimming through a sea of people. And he would have raised prices even more on Annual Passholders to weed out those he felt were a drain on the company. But he did not do any of that. Instead he wanted his cake and eat it too. But it made him reviled for his Scrooge McDuck like ways (heck, even Scrooge was more generous and thoughtful than Chapek). So Bob, stop whining that you got the short end of the stick and accept that you were not right for the job. Maybe Disney fandom would forgive you.
