Mousekingdom Blog

Just a couple of post before I talked about the Marvel Comics park in Dubai where I also mentioned the F1 Theme Park. Only one day later I came across a very interesting news item on the Grandprix website related to Formula 1. Now let me start this of with the following question; Did you think that Disney and F1 would ever see a joint venture going on? I sure didn’t see this one coming but I am intrigued, to say the least, about the following rumor.

While a F1 park at Dubai is a done deal, the owner of the franchise Union Properties might be already looking at an expansion for a second gate. One possibility would be at Disneyland Resort Paris.

It seems that the primary location under study at the moment is Disneyland Paris. (Bernie talks of a Paris Grand Prix)

Imagine that; a F1 race track next to DLRP. Not that this is entirely new as you can already race a car in Walt Disney World’s Richard Petty Driving Experience (Something that appeals to me, but haven’t been able to do yet). The F1 might be something completely new (no racing yourself) but might be another full year experience with more then just a track. (If you can even say that about a F1 track)

I remember the Shareholder meeting I attended a couple of weeks ago. I already mentioned that their park locations are pretty much filled up (with a third gate possibility fading even more), but that they still have a lot of room for third party companies. Could it be that Euro Disney S.C.A. is looking at this kind of expansion?

Why not? Imagine the new visitors this might bring to the park. A third park on property, although not owned by Euro Disney S.C.A., might bring extra people into the hotels and would convince those interested in F1 to stay on for an extra couple of days in a Disney park. F1 is big business, ticket prices are very high, bringing in some of the wealthy people, suites might be fully booked around a F1 weekend and DLRP might well benefit from this if the deal is done well. The rest of the year could be filled with many other racing events.

As you might have noticed I am excited about this myself. I love a good F1 race and see this kind of joint venture as a very positive thing. The extra money Euro Disney S.C.A. will get for the use of their land and the extra income on hotel this will generate might push them in the right direction (completely out of the financial disaster). Who knows, if this will happen and it is a success, maybe they’ll find another space for that third gate after all.

Obviously this remains a rumor until official words come out and as this seems to be in a very early stage this could be a while… or even not at all. We will have to wait and see.

The big question is whether a deal can be struck between Union Properties and Disney for a combined theme park-race track. (The case for Disneyland Paris)

Bernie Ecclestone is very confident that the French will be behind this project…

Having lost the America’s Cup bid for Marseilles and the Olympics Games bid for Paris in 2012 - both projects in which the government was ready to invest tens of millions of euros - I don’t imagine that they will let one of the biggest sporting events of the year disappear.” (Bernie talks of a Paris Grand Prix)

I can only say that this would fit on Disney property. For many people F1 is a little magic (the whole fast cars thing) so why not bring it to the most magical place of all. It will be interesting to follow the development around this news.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Disney Company, Disney Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.