A Team by Any Other Name Would Be Much Sweeter

One high concept deserves another, so we will sum up our reaction to the latest Disney extravaganza, “It’s a Beauty of a Lease,” and its ever-astonishing plot twist--Disney wins in the end--in six exceedingly short words or less.

Drop the puck.

Drop the Ducks.

For those thousands of disposable incomes about to be taken to the rink, it is simple, really.

All Orange County wants on its ice come October is something resembling a professional hockey team . . . and something sounding like a professional hockey team.

Anything close will do.

Yet Michael Eisner continues to toy with us, “toy” very definitely being the operative word here. There will be no glory in dragging an expansion outfit called “the Mighty Ducks” into the Montreal Forum next fall, but there are millions of cuddly stuffed ducks to be sold and millions of kids to be enchanted by a web-footed right winger.

In Disney’s world, what greater glory can there be than tapping into previously unimagined treasure trove of gold and silver?

There are mighty bucks to be made off the Mighty Ducks--and so what of those reports of mass faintings in Halifax and Saskatoon over the prospect of Lord Stanley’s Cup being hoisted one day by players bearing the uniform likeness of Donald Duck’s second cousin? When Disney looks at the Stanley Cup, it sees a worthless tin can. What, it just sits there? You mean you rub it and Robin Williams doesn’t grant you three wishes? But when Disney sees “Mighty Ducks,” it sees sweat shirts and sequels and juice mugs and baby bibs and $ upon $$ upon $$$.

So far, Eisner has made nothing official--not even a franchise start-up in 1993, even though Friday’s lease accord all but assures it--but he has said that Mighty Ducks is his first choice as team name “and there is no second choice.” Les Habitants , meet Les Canards. Our only hope is that this is another of those famed Disney diversionary tactics, a smoke-screen cover for Eisner as he rounds up a corporate sponsor--say, a certain credit-card company--and announces the christening of the Anaheim Express.

Then again, Eisner knows he could call his team the Fighting Rush Limbaughs, and the season-ticket line outside Anaheim Arena would run up the 57 Freeway off ramp, just as long as he has that team playing by October.

It was a classic negotiating maneuver--declaring on Dec. 10 that Anaheim has a hockey team, and it could begin play in either 1993 or 1994. Appetites were whetted, and the feeding frenzy ensued, leading to this week’s 11th-hour round-the-clock arm-wrestling with the city of Anaheim and the Ogden Entertainment Co.

Hockey, right here, right now, was the prize--and Anaheim and Ogden had to have it. Anaheim officials couldn’t bear looking voters in face and having to murmur, “We couldn’t get the lease done, so you owe Ogden another million dollars.” Ogden couldn’t bear the thought of sinking $103 million into a perfectly good hockey arena and hearing Disney say, “Not acceptable. We’re going to build our own.”

Disney held almost all the important cards, but its business sense also dictated that it get this deal done now.

More than 9,000 potential season-ticket buyers were banging on Anaheim Arena’s door. Better grab them while they’re hot.

The NHL, too, was jumping up and down at the idea of adding Disney’s marketing clout to a league that has had Wayne Gretzky stateside for 4 1/2 seasons and still has no major American network television contract. The sooner the better. So the NHL dangled unprecedented enticements in front of Disney’s nose: Come in now and draft some of the best goalies we have. Come in now and draft one of the top five amateur players in the world in one of the best amateur drafts in years.

Offer expires March 1, 1993.

Once all sides agreed there was more to be gained by plunging ahead immediately, the lease got hammered out. Final totals: Disney won, Anaheim placed and Ogden can show you bruises from all the hits it had to take.

Disney will control all dasher-board and around-the-rink advertising revenue. Disney will set seat prices. Disney will choose the corporate sponsor that will buy its way onto the arena’s letterhead. Disney will get to use Anaheim Arena to film “Mighty Ducks II.”

Disney can terminate the lease at the end of the 2000-2001 season.

That last one tends to catch the eye--eight seasons and out?--although Brad Mayne, Anaheim Arena general manager, was busy spinning away Friday night.

‘(Disney) will make a lot of investments in their team, and there’s a large sum of money they’ll have to pay ($12 million) to get out of the lease,” Mayne said. “It’s not just something where at the end of eight years they’d say, ‘We tried, and we’re out of here.’ It’s really a 30-year agreement.”

Meanwhile, Ogden is stuck for half the $25-million indemnity Disney must pay Kings owner Bruce McNall for violating territorial rights and waives the first three years of its eight-year “debt service” agreement with Anaheim. This had been Ogden’s “white elephant insurance”--$2.5 million a year if Anaheim procures no NBA or NHL, $1.5 million if Anaheim lands one or the other.

Now, Anaheim gets the first three years free in exchange for its promise to Ogden of obtaining long-term leases for additional arena parking.

Oh, Disney also receives the right to impose its freshly scrubbed dress code--no facial hair for men, no excessive jewelry for women--on arena employees, which means Deion Sanders needs to line up a different off-season job.

It also means Mayne will soon be losing a longtime companion, his trademark curly brown beard. Technically, the arena general manager isn’t required to shave, but Mayne plans to anyway, wanting to set the proper example.

It could have been worse. Mayne still has his shirt, for instance. And his arena now has a regular occupant, curtailing the need for him to line up tractor pulls, arena football and Billy Ray Cyrus.

Give Mayne and Anaheim and Ogden that, and they’ll let Eisner name his hockey team just about anything.

That is what we have to fear.