Sea World, Universal & Disney

I had a pretty long article queued up again on why I thought that Disney wouldn’t be interested in buying Busch Entertainment.  I still stand behind that theory, regardless of what the press has said. 

In this economy, when Disney is having problems with their own domestic parks, the last thing they would or should be interested in is buying up Busch Entertainment.  I guess they could keep Sea World and try to sell the other parks to someone like Cedar Fair or Six Flags, but frankly that’s a lot of work in my opinion.  They might even propose a split buyout with one of those companies right up front, which I still don’t think likely. 

Sea World itself isn’t that far of a stretch for Disney thematically, especially given the popularity of The Animal Kingdom.  But lets face it, the locations stink in relation to the other Disney parks in both California (it’s 90 miles south in San Diego) and in Florida (it’s about 10-15 miles up I-4 from Disney World). 

The logistical hurdle alone of getting people who fly in to these resort destinations to theses parks would be enormous, and surely Jay Rasulo and folks could come up with something better to do for a couple of billion bucks than buy two sea parks, a boutique experience park, a new water park and also be under the contractual commitment to build in Dubai.  Heck, I think you and I could come up with a few C, D and E ticket attractions for $1b (that’s the WHOLE budget for DCA, remember? and 1/4 of the price of the park proposal for Shanghai).

Yep, I said it, Dubai isn’t off as far as I can tell.  If you read that announcement the other day about not building anything in Dubai and thought the process was over, go read it again.  If you read it closely, it merely says Busch Entertainment and the builder have agreed to DEFER the project for the time being due to the state of the global economy.  Only the over zealous AP headline said CANCEL. 

Nope, my suspicion is that Disney will put their name in the hat, if they haven’t already, just to get a look at the books.  After all, wouldn’t you LOVE to know how they operate that boutique park you envy so much from the inside out?  How much would you pay to just know that info without actually buying it? 

Likewise, at what fire sale price would you pay for it just to take a competitor out of the market?  Nope, you don’t walk away from deals like this just because you don’t really want to buy.  You show up to make sure you don’t create another competitor without them working for it.

On another front, Universal gave away a BUNCH of tickets the other night after the Super Bowl, and I’d say the uptake on the offer for a free ticket for the first 100,000 people was pretty slow.  Why do I say that?  Well, because I just got an e-mail telling me that I won just such a ticket, and I didn’t register until almost 1:30 in the morning (long story about why I was up that late, mostly related to my current college class and NOT the Super Bowl). 

I have no idea what number out of the 100,000 I am, though I registered my wife at the same time just to have two entries in the associated sweepstakes and she didn’t get an e-mail at all (it’s only good for one person per household after all).  So obviously they are making sure nobody from the same house gets two tickets. 

I don’t think Disney could have done this frankly, at least not in the same way.  I suspect the cost to Universal isn’t anywhere close to what it COULD be for Disney with the free on your b-day deal.  After all, 100,000 tickets has a finite, known expense.  It’s hard to say how many people will take Disney up on their offer.  But 100,000 tickets without some special kicker at Disney would be a drop in the bucket, when the Magic Kingdom sees, what, 5 times that even on the most dead of days??

If you didn’t win, or didn’t enter, here is what the announcement looks like:

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Dear Michael Jones,

Congratulations! You are one of the first one hundred thousand (100,000) individuals to successfully register for the Universal Heroes Promotion, administered by ePrize.

For your registration, you will receive a Universal Orlando® 2-PARK Unlimited Admission Ticket valid for 7 consecutive days at both Universal Orlando theme parks! Please see the Official Rules for further prize details and eligibility requirements. You will receive your Universal Orlando Park ticket confirmation code in the mail within the next 4-6 weeks. The ticket confirmation code mailer will be sent to the address you provided in your registration. You will need to present your ticket confirmation code mailer and a valid form of identification* at the ticket windows of either Universal Studios Florida or Islands of Adventure theme parks. Your Universal Orlando® 2-park Unlimited Admission Ticket is valid March 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009.

At this time, no additional action is required on your part. Should we need further information from you, we will contact you at this email address.

As a reminder, only one ticket per household will be provided per the Official Rules. For a complete set of Rules for this promotion, please visit http://www.universalheroes.com/public/popup/rules.html.

Please refer to them for any questions you may have. Should you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact Prize Fulfillment Services by replying to this email. Please be sure to keep the original subject line in your reply.

Congratulations again and thank you for your continued patronage of Universal Orlando®.
Prize Fulfillment Services
fulfillment@eprizefulfillment.com

*Valid forms of identification include a U.S. government issued passport, a U.S. state issued driver's license or other form of photo identification issued by a state governmental agency.