In the late 1980's the revitalized Walt Disney Company was in the process of expanding their
theme parks under the leadership of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells.
New rides, news hotels, and even new parks were on the way, and with all of those new
experiences, Disney needed to get the word out.
One unique way in which they did so was with an annual sporting event held at Walt Disney
World called The Goofy Games.
It was relatively short lived, but it was a great example of the creative ways Disney
marketed their parks.
Back in the days of Walt, using traditional advertising to market Disneyland was virtually unheard of.
There was a belief that the Disney name and reputation was so well known, that it simply
wasn’t necessary.
Instead, the company had a habit of inviting the press to cover new ride openings and events,
with the idea that the news outlets would be more than willing to write about the park for free.
Not to mention his own television series, known at the time as Walt Disney’s Disneyland,
did more than enough to market the park.
And while more traditional advertising was adopted during the Eisner era, that didn’t
stop Disney from turning to those same creative marketing approaches that it had used for
so many decades before.
Enter, the Goofy Games.
Commercial: "Few athletes have the opportunity to compete in an event of this significance."
"It takes a special talent, just the right person. Our very own 'Harding's Heroes' are suiting up"
"for The Goofy Games! Beginning April 23rd through the 28th. Stay tuned to channel 8 to find out how"
"they're doing as they match skills with Goofy teams from around the world."
"The Goofy Games is fun and it's coming your way! So meet your Goofy team and watch for them, beginning"
"this weekend on WISH TV, channel 8."
Kicked off in 1985, The Goofy Games were a multi-day sporting event that was held every
spring at Walt Disney World.
Teams of four from across the country, and later the world, would compete in somewhat
silly competitions in what would ultimately be Disney’s own lighthearted Olympics.
From afar, nothing about the event seemed that innovative or creative.
However the clever marketing came in the form of just who made up those teams because you
see the teams weren’t based on cities or states or nations like in most sporting events.
Instead they were based on local television stations.
Starting small, 25 major market television stations from across the country were invited
on an all-expense paid trip to Disney World to participate in The Goofy Games.
The idea was that one member of the team would be the station’s representative, usually
an anchor or reporter.
They, in turn, would get two professional athletes, sometimes from their region, to join the team.
Lastly, they’d hold their own local contest in which one lucky viewer would get to join
the team as the 4th and final member.
The teams would compete at Disney for prize money that would be donated to a charity of
their choosing.
It was a brilliant event concept.
For one lucky viewer per team, they were winning an all-paid trip to Disney World.
For the television stations, they were gaining exposure and positive PR from not only running
the contest that offered that free trip, but for partaking in a charitable event.
The athletes were gaining similarly positive press for taking part, and it was lending
the event some star power because, let’s be honest, local news anchors aren’t really
going to draw in crowds.
Finally, Disney was gaining positive exposure for running the entire event.
However beyond that, they were inviting 25 major market television stations.
So of course those stations were bringing their own crews to the event and of course
they were covering it on their news programs.
For the price of the event, Disney was gaining the media exposure of 25 markets across the country.
It was a win for everybody, but it was especially a win for Disney.
Reporter: "-and we did look around a lot this week. We saw lots of interesting things, met lots of nice, nice"
"people, and I learned that I had athletic skills that I never even dreamed of. Things like, you know,"
"running with flippers on. It's been a good week."
"Not bad for rookies then. Well have a little vacation now and take care. Bye bye May"
The event was such a success that it would be held again the following year, and by the
third Goofy Games in 1987, the number of participating stations would double to fifty.
The year after that teams from other nations were invited, and perhaps most notably one
of the teams featured popular Olympian Eddie the Eagle from the UK.
By this point the event was generating over a quarter of a million dollars for the chosen charities.
Disney would cleverly pick events that would highlight new additions to the theme parks
so that folks at home watching their local teams would get a look at what was new down in Florida
Just as a side note, but this wasn’t the only instance of Goofy related sporting being
utilized by Disney at the time.
Just prior to the Goofy Games, Disney had licensed out Goofy for a European sporting
event called “Sport Goofy”.
It eventually made its way over to the states in the form of an annual tennis tournament
for kids called the “Sport Goofy Tennis World Finals”.
Disney even held traveling versions of “Sport Goofy” for guests at the “Magic Kingdom
on Ice” show.
Over on Disney’s very first cruise partnership with Norwegian Cruise Lines, they offered
their own on-board Goofy Olympics for passengers.
So what happened to the Goofy Games?
Well, for as much as I searched, there was no public reason I could find to explain the
end of the event in 1991.
The final year of the games wasn’t promoted as such, so it just seems that by 1992 they
chose not to run it anymore.
It is worth noting that by that final year they had scaled the event back to just feature athletes.
Perhaps the novelty of the event was wearing off.
When it began in the mid 1980's satellite broadcasting for smaller channels was still
relatively new, so there was something special about the idea of your local station reporting
from somewhere further away like Disney World.
Interviewee: "We bring in 9 satellite trucks, 9 production trucks. At any one time we can up to 16 live
simultaneous feeds. This week we'll have done over 400 uplinks alone."
Reporter: "My God. Expensive?"
Interviewee: "Expensive, but in the long run it works out for us and it works out for those people participating."
But after a while, like most technology, it just became a part of everyday life.
By that point Euro Disney, now Disneyland Paris, was also under construction and proving
to be a significant financial burden on Disney, so it’s entirely possible that when it came
time to tighten their belt, events like this were dropped to save money.
For whatever the reasons, the Goofy Games unceremoniously came to an end in the early
1990's, marking a distancing from the Goofy themed sporting events.
However just a few years later Disney would take a much more serious interest in the world
of sports when they would found their own NHL hockey team, The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
A few years after that they’d purchase a baseball team, the Anaheim Angels, and of
course their biggest move into the world of sports would be in 1996 with the acquisition
of ESPN as a part of their purchase of Capital Cities/ABC
It’d be silly to say that The Goofy Games wasn’t paid advertising.
Disney was paying a lot of money out of their own pocket in order to gain the media exposure
they were looking for.
Still though, with much of it going towards charity, it was perhaps one of the more beneficial
examples of Disney’s creative approach to marketing their parks.