After visiting the TDR for the second time and seeing how completely "Disney" the experience is over there, it got me to really wondering what the details are of the arrangement between The Walt Disney Company and Oriental Land Company. The only thing I was able to find on a cursory internet search is from the Disney website which lists their ownership stake in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. For each except Tokyo, it lists an actual percentage, but for Tokyo it says "licensing agreement only".

Okay, so OLC pays Disney for the use of their characters, ride designs, merchandise, etc. What's the cut? Does Disney get a raw percentage of the profits? Of the revenues? When they used Imagineers to design DisneySea, did they pay for that labor or is it just part of the deal that Disney helps build new stuff counting on bigger profits down the road? Does anyone know more details?

Iceman, see how good that security guy was that the Feds hired away from Disney?

Nobody on the inside is willing to cough up the information out of fear or because they were on a "need to know" basis and didn't need to know ............

I recall hearing someplace in a newspaper article that Disney was getting 10% of either profits or revenues from TDS for their licensing arrangement - I think it was profits but am not sure.......

But nothing in terms of any agreements for licensing and/or exclusivity of technology, which is perhaps the more interesting question if one is interested in seeing TDS attractions show up elsewhere ........

Like you, I await some "deep throat" to give us the scoop on this .......

It is unlikely that any of the deal is nearly as mysterious as these posts are making it out to be. Both Disney and The Oriental Land Company are public corporations. If you want to do the research, you should be able to locate most of the key details of the deal by going through both companies annual reports and public filings.

Since the deal is a much bigger relative part of OLC's business than Disney's, you would probably want to focus on their reports. Being able to read Japanese would likely be a big help there, although it is likely that English translations of most key documents would be available.

-Jeff

JeffG: I do not believe that Disney and/or OLC are bound to publish each and every agreement between them to the public.
Yes, I believe they are bound to provide to the public financial information regarding expected expenses and income from such relationships but I do not believe that they must report each and every detail of their agreements.

For instance, if there was a portion of the agreement that was made public which disclosed that Disney could not build any of the attractions found at TDS in the US for 10 years, what would be there to stop Universal from building their own "Journey to the Earth's Core" ride in IOA to ruin any chance of Disney building their JTTCOTE ride as part of a DisneySea park in Florida?

Another instance: If Disney contracted with George Lucas to build an new attraction, would all details of that contract be made public? Don't think so .........

Just becuase it is a public corporation does not mean that all contract and agreement details are made public ........