Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner "initially thought" the
idea of a sports complex at Walt Disney World was a "'bad
idea'" that made "little economic sense," according to
Richard Verrier of the ORLANDO SENTINEL. In a deposition
released yesterday in All Pro Sports' $1B suit against
Disney claiming the entertainment company stole the idea of
the Sports Complex (see THE DAILY, 7/13), Eisner said,
"[Disney execs] knew that I thought it was a generic,
nonunique, risky business, so they had to convince me pretty
hard to do it." Eisner said he was "later convinced the
complex would be "economically positive" for Disney. In the
June 28 deposition that was "unusually contentious," Eisner
said that he had "never heard" of All Pro Sports and its
proposal to build a sports complex at Disney World. He also
said that he "could not recall" an '87 meeting in which
senior Disney execs met with All Pro to discuss its project.
Eisner: "We have meetings all the time with people that I
don't know about. It's not unusual." But attorney Johnnie
Cochran, co-counsel for All Pro Sports, said of the
deposition, "I thought it was revealing for some of the
things [Eisner] didn't say. He claims this project isn't
unique. That flies in the face of their [Disney's] own
advertising. He's a hands-on CEO ... yet he doesn't know
about this project?" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 7/19).
