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Wide World of Sports

For many Disney guests, the Wide World of Sports is a spot on the map, not a destination. For sports fans, though, it's familiar territory, and Benson Myers compares its success with the failure of its competition, Circus World and Boardwalk and Baseball.

- Benson Myers, April 14, 2011

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Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of athletic competition...

This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!

For almost 40 years, those words opened the sports anthology program 'The Wide World of Sports' on the ABC television network. I bet you can probably remember its famous opening sequence with the Olympic skier tumbling down the hill.

Florida, with its almost year-round good weather, is a popular location for sports teams to hold their spring training camps, in particular, teams from the National Football League and Major League Baseball. Today, we will examine sports-themed resorts in Florida that competed against each other in the drama of economic competition.

Disney's Wide World of Sports

Given the popularity of team sports in the United States, many fans came to Florida to watch their favorite teams up close. In 1997, Disney announced that they would begin construction of a new facility on the Walt Disney World property. It would become home to sports of all kinds, not just football and baseball.

Stadiums and facilities were built to host baseball, football, softball, tennis, and track-and-field events. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers held their training camp at the Wide World of Sports from 2002-2008, and currently the Atlanta Braves baseball club uses the facilities for its training. A college basketball tourney, the Old Spice Classic, is held there every year as well.

The Wide World of Sports complex greatly expanded the recreational offerings at Walt Disney World. You might think that it offers a strange contrast to the other theme parks like EPCOT or Magic Kingdom. However, Disney was not the first company to combine the sports and amusement park concepts into a travel destination.

Circus World

In the early 1980's, the publishing company Harcourt Brace Jovanovich went on a spending spree and purchased several theme parks in Florida, attempting to cash in on the lucrative Florida tourism market. One of their acquisitions was Circus World, an amusement park several miles down the freeway from Walt Disney World.

Circus World opened in 1974 and was home to the winter headquarters of the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus.

At its peak, Circus World featured live circus acts, an IMAX theater, a rodeo, a circus museum, and several amusement park rides (including a log flume, carousel, and wooden roller coaster). In 1987, when Harcourt Brace Jovanovich purchased Circus World, they found its concept lacking and decided to rebuild it with a baseball theme:

Boardwalk and Baseball

The new Boardwalk and Baseball, as the new resort was called, featured a new state of the art baseball diamond and a museum featuring artifacts on loan from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It incorporated the rides and attractions from Circus World, as well as a multi-million dollar replica of a Victorian-era seaside boardwalk. HBJ also signed deals with several minor-league baseball teams to move their spring training facilities to the Boardwalk and Baseball stadium.

Despite all these attractions and improvements, Boardwalk and Baseball failed in less than three years, due mostly to the financial woes of its owner, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, and the fact that its marketing budget was next to nothing.

Another factor in its failure was its location. Haines City was just too far away from Orlando to interest out-of-state tourists. The lure of the Disney brand was just too big, and guests didn't bother to make the drive out to Haines City.

Victory and Defeat

There you have it.

On one side, Disney's Wide World of Sports has experienced the thrill of victory. It is more popular than ever, and in 2010 it was rethemed with the Disney-owned ESPN brand.

On the other side, Boardwalk and Baseball experienced the agony of defeat. After it closed in 1990, the Boardwalk and Baseball site was abandoned for many years until it was sold and its features demolished. Retail stores and condos took its place.

So, having learned of the fate of Boardwalk and Baseball, you can experience the thrill of Walt Disney World but still suffer the agony of 'da feet' from too much walking.

(Sorry about that last bit, I couldn't resist.)

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