Agree that stock buybacks are a problem, but based on the rest of your rant I don’t think you have the foggiest of clues as to why. The biggest issue is the American economic system - which is taught in virtually every business school in the country, and is considered gospel by both political parties - is based on the idea that reducing the value of labor (wages) and inflating asset prices (things like houses) is the road to growth and prosperity. It’s idiotic and was always doomed to fail - and we see the inevitable result as young people can’t afford to buy a house. (Note we’ll this is gospel for BOTH parties - if you are the type to rant about evil Republicans OR evil Democrats, you can’t even begin to grasp the real issue).
That mentality is why Iger bought every asset he could touch in his time as CEO - assets go up in value, so more assets means better stock price and performance. The problem for both Disney (and the country) is the thinking that has been used is deeply flawed - in Disney’s case, sometimes assets become worthless (or close to it). They should have spun ESPN off a decade ago when cord cutting started, but for some inexplicable reason they didn’t - and Iger still sees ESPN as core business. My guess based on past performance is he’s going to hold on to this pile of manure that ESPN now is, convinced there’s still a pony in there somewhere - while it continues to devalue more over time.
The best thing for Disney to do at this point would be spin everything off except the parks into a “new” Disney, and ideally name someone Iger hates as CEO. The park value of “old” Disney would roughly match current stock price, “new” Disney would be a hot pile of garbage that would almost certainly go to zero eventually (probably within 15-20 years).
Since we’ve got predictions of people paying $100/mo for sports access in the future, I’ll make a different prediction. I don’t think most of the production of sports content makes any economic sense - I will bet our access to televised sports drops dramatically. I remember not getting many college football games as a kid in the 70s, and a Mets game on a channel I could get was a treat. I think it’ll be more like that - you want to watch the Syracuse game at home? Too bad - nobody is producing it. Either go to the game or listen on radio.
