Curran Unlikely to Reap the Fruits of His Labor

For nine months, Joel Curran has had dual projects in development.

The Angel deal collapsed on Wednesday.

The baby is due any day.

Curran, who holds the Disneyesque title of Director of Synergy for Disney Sports Enterprises, has worked out of the Angel offices at Anaheim Stadium as a “consultant” since June.

In truth, he was the point man for all the changes Disney had in mind for the Angels--a new logo by 1997, more aggressive season-ticket sales, an image-transforming marketing campaign.

Now, all that work appears to have gone up in smoke. Unless the deal is resurrected, Curran, a self-professed workaholic, will have a lot more time to perfect his diaper technique. He and his wife, Kitty, are expecting their first child, a daughter who was conceived about the same time as the Walt Disney Co.’s plan to buy 25% of the Angels last May.

Curran’s situation might be the most obvious example, but the breakdown of stadium negotiations between Disney and the city of Anaheim means a lot of effort has probably been wasted.

“Personally, a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” said Disney Sports Enterprises President Tony Tavares, who wouldn’t attempt to calculate Disney’s financial investment.

Among other things, Disney has a never-used set of stadium renovation plans on its hands. One industry expert said the designs probably already had cost the company hundreds of thousands in architectural and planning fees.

Not much of a market for those at this point.

“The next owner isn’t going to look at this through the same glasses we did,” Tavares said. “We’ll put them in a file for a long time. I guess, at some point, destroy them.”

The last few weeks of intensifying negotiations, with the sides reaching consensus on the framework of a deal under which Disney would pay $70 million of the $100 million cost of stadium renovations. . . . all of it appears to be for nothing now.

“It all blends together,” Tavares said. “A lot of three-hour, four-hour conference calls. My ear felt like it was going to fall off.”

Some Angel employees were breathing cautious sighs of relief at Anaheim Stadium--those who figured their jobs might have been eliminated by Disney. Club president Richard Brown was probably among them.

Over at Disney Sports Enterprises, visions of promotions, reassignments and titles of vice president vanished.

But oddly, the Disney affiliation with the Angels won’t end right away. Curran and another consultant, the Ducks’ Bob Wagner, will continue working with the team for as much as a month, Tavares said, as a “courtesy” to Angel owner Jackie Autry.

Wagner, formerly a marketing executive with the Angels, is director of advertising sales and services for Disney Sports Enterprises, but he has been pulling double duty for the Angels and Ducks since November, when Craig Gerber left the Angels’ marketing department to work for the Piranhas Arena Football team.

Together, Curran and Wagner had come up with such things as the Angels’ “We play hardball” slogan and revamped season-ticket packages. Wagner’s job has been lining up corporate sponsors who were eager to be affiliated with the Disney-owned Angels.

Over the next few weeks, he’ll be in the odd position of trying to assure them they should still sign up.