There’ll Be Some Changes Made, Tavares Promises

It has been nearly 11 mind-numbing months since the Walt Disney Co. began planning to take over operation of the Angels, but Disney Sports Enterprises President Tony Tavares says the entertainment giant will move quickly and decisively as soon as it finally controls the team.

“You can anticipate a Desert Storm kind of operation. We’ll be that quick,” Tavares said. “I don’t believe in slow processes. You go in, establish a beachhead, you have a game plan and you execute it.”

Disney and the city of Anaheim cleared what Tavares called their biggest hurdle when the city council approved the outline of a stadium-renovation deal Wednesday, though Disney will act only as “very active advisors” to the Angels until the lease agreement and purchase of a minority share of the team from Gene and Jackie Autry are final.

Nevertheless, Tavares made it clear that Disney is intent on transforming the Angels’ image, from the stadium where the team plays right down to the uniforms they wear--which will no longer clothe the California Angels as of next season, but the Anaheim Angels, as agreed to in the elaborate stadium deal with the city.

“You’ve got to change the image, and it’s been done elsewhere,” Tavares said in a wide-ranging interview before the latest deal was reached. “Look at Cleveland. Who ever thought the Cleveland Indians would be a source of pride for the city of Cleveland? Five years ago, if you said that, you’d have gotten a big belly laugh.

“If you cut through it, the challenge with the Angels is not so much that they’ve been losers as it is that they’ve accepted being second best in the marketplace, and that’s not good enough for us.”

Tavares is turning much of his attention from the Mighty Ducks to the Angels, and Richard Brown figures to be out as club president, though his contract provides him with a parachute--a handsome severance package. Tavares said he probably will hire an experienced administrator to handle day-to-day oversight of the Angels’ operations. But over the next month, Tavares will interview each of the Angels’ 45 full-time staff members and make a decision as to “who stays and who goes.”

“That’s not necessarily comforting to people, but at least it’s candid and honest,” he said.

Baseball operations--which Tavares called “rock-solid”--will be largely untouched. But there will be broad-brush changes in sales and marketing as Disney tries to change the image of a team Tavares says has passively accepted being No. 3 in a marketplace where “the Dodgers are No. 1 and there isn’t really a No. 2.”

A closer look at some of Disney’s plans for the Angels:

STADIUM

“I guarantee you’ll be able to drive up and not recognize it,” Tavares said of plans for $100 million in renovations that would begin this fall and be completed by the 1999 season.

The idea is to create a stadium that will seem new and unique enough to lure fans to what has become a tired venue. Much of its lost appeal would be restored by knocking out the center field seats that were added when the stadium was enclosed for the Rams in 1979. And though Tavares said he “can’t promise,” he envisions moving the “Big A” back to left field.

“As it became a multiuse stadium it became a little bit cold,” Tavares said. “We’re trying to add some warmth.”

By reopening the enclosed end, the capacity would be reduced from a cavernous 65,000 to a more intimate 45,000-47,000--small enough to create a sense of scarcity and demand for tickets.

The concourses would be widened to help create a more open, brighter feel--and to lessen congestion, making it more enticing to buy food and team merchandise.

True to Disney Chairman Michael Eisner’s penchant for cutting-edge architecture, the stadium would have “a signature”--something visible from a distance.

THE “GUEST EXPERIENCE”

As for what Disney will do beyond the game itself, there is probably less reason for fans to fear than there was in the case of hockey. Picnic areas and radar guns to test your arm are likely additions, but Tavares says fireworks to celebrate home runs have become a bit tired. Laser effects might be an alternative. Disney will try some new things with the “entertainment,” but will not try to change the face of the game.

“I think we we want to fill some voids,” Tavares said. “Listen, if there is a sport that gets slow at times, it’s baseball. We hopefully, in a tasteful way, can increase the entertainment value.”

MARKETING

“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but Disney has its vision of how things should be marketed,” Tavares said. “When we asked Jackie and Gene Autry where the biggest shortcoming in the last 10 years was, they said marketing.”

The Angels have attempted to improve the team’s marketing and boost season-ticket sales, but Tavares essentially scoffs.

“It’s been putting an ad in the paper and saying, ‘Operators are standing by.’ ”

Cross-promotions between the Angels and Ducks are a given, and there will be a push to boost season-ticket sales. Tavares believes attendance should average around 2.5 million a season--a level the Angels haven’t reached since 1990. Last season, they drew 1.7 million during the strike-shortened season, failing to reach 2 million for the second year in a row.

“When you look at the attendance and the size of the marketplace, something’s wrong,” he said. “We’d like to get to the point that an off-night is 30,000 instead of 17,000.’

As for the logo--whose sales haven’t ranked in baseball’s top 10 for some time--Tavares believes the halo “has some value” and said the colors will probably be reevaluated.

“We had some people toying around with it for a while,” he said.

One way or another, Disney is intent on producing a popular design that can be emblazoned on everything its Consumer Products division can conceive.

But like plans to make Anaheim Stadium anew, an image can’t be changed in a manner of months.