Disney has issued an important warning about how the ongoing battles in Florida could really impact the Company.

We’ve got a long post on the history here, but the basic story here is that following Disney’s statement against the Parental Rights in Education Bill (what critics called “Don’t Say Gay”), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida legislators took steps to dramatically change the Reedy Creek Improvement District Disney had controlled and operated under for 50+ years. Disney has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that this was all a plan of retaliation by the Governor and others, the Governor has signed a law to void some of Disney’s agreements with the prior board, the new board of the District has filed a lawsuit against Disney, and (basically) the battle is still ongoing. But now we’ve got an interesting development to share.

On May 10th, Disney released its quarterly earnings report and held its earnings call about its latest fiscal quarter. We got updates on Disney+ subscriptions, how the parks are doing financially, Disney+ plans for the future, and what Disney CEO Bob Iger thinks about the DeSantis situation. But now we’ve got another update.

In one part of a quarterly report filed with the SEC (FORM 10-Q), Disney has a section titled “Regulations applicable to our businesses may impair the profitability of our businesses.” It goes through various things that could impact Disney’s business and its ability to be profitable. That includes things like US FCC regulation of TV and radio networks, privacy and data protection laws, environmental protection regulations, restrictions on licensing, and more.

In a bottom paragraph portion, the company also details other things that could impact their business like issues with international political, trade, and security policy that could impact Disney’s operations outside the US. They specifically cite examples related to sanctions in Russia and more.

That language isn’t new and has been there in previous reports (for example, we saw much of that in the report filed for Q1 of fiscal year 2023). But a specific addition appears to have been made to the report for Q1 of fiscal year 2023 related to the DeSantis drama.

The bottom portion now also says, “In Florida, steps directed at the Company (including the passage of legislation) have been taken and future actions have been threatened, which collectively could negatively impact (and may have already impacted) our ability to execute on our business strategy, our costs and the profitability of our operations in Florida.”

In other words, Disney is warning investors that the things happening in Florida with the actions taken related to Disney and the Reedy Creek District by DeSantis, the legislature, and/or the new Board of Supervisors could negatively impact Disney’s ability to do the things they had planned for Florida or be as profitable as they may have hoped to be in Florida.

This comes just as Iger stated during the earnings call that DeSantis’ actions have been a matter of pure retaliation. Iger pointed out how Disney is the largest taxpayer in Central Florida, employs around 75,000 people in the state, and has plans to invest billions more in Disney World over the next several years.

He posed the following question seemingly to those in leadership positions within Florida’s political realm — “Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay taxes, or not?”

We will be watching for more updates and will share those with you. For now, you can click here to see what recent polling has to say about Americans’ opinion on the debate. Or you can learn more about the bill DeSantis has signed into law that’ll impact monorail inspections, and another bill being introduced that could affect Disney’s no-fly zones. Stay tuned for more news.

See details about the Reedy Creek board’s lawsuit against Disney here

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The post Disney Issues Important WARNING About DeSantis Drama first appeared on the disney food blog.