I first saw this rumor on Kevin Yee's MiceAge posts, and I've now seen it repeated a half-dozen times elsewhere: Disney's accountants have done a study saying that if oil reaches $160 a barrel, there's no way the company can turn a profit on Walt Disney World. And in that environment, Disney should just sell the resort to a third party, then collect license fees from said third party.

Is this just completely made-up, because the idea sounds, well, preposterous. If it isn’t profitable for Disney to run the parks in that environment, why would it be profitable for anyone else to run them either, given that they’d also be saddled with licensing fees to pay to Disney?

Maybe this makes sense if Disney sells to Exxon. Otherwise, what am I missing here?