Disney Springs Employees Affected by Layoffs - Inside the Magic

In the days following Disney Parks, Experience and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro’s announcement of the layoffs of 28,000 U.S. Disney Parks Cast Members, more details have come to light. Now, we know that some Disney Springs Cast Members have been impacted.

A Cast Member at the NBA Experience at Disney Springs took to Facebook today to share that himself and all of his fellow NBA Experience employees have officially been laid off by the company. The NBA Experience Cast Members had been furloughed for months prior to being notified of the layoffs this week.

Michael Engelbart’s Facebook post reads:

This morning, myself and all of my fellow cast members at NBA Experience at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World received the call that we are all being separated from the company. We had all be furloughed since April. The last day The NBA Experience was open was March 16, the last day I worked at it was March 15th.

We were open for less than a year, having originally officially opened on August 12, 2019. For most of us, our training started on June 17th, 2019. The trainers and leaders though started slightly before that.

This was the 2nd time I worked at Disney, as I had worked at EPCOT in Outdoor Foods back when I first moved to Florida during the spring and summer of 1999.

I will miss the team I worked with at NBA tremendously, such a great group of individuals who all brought unique perspectives and experiences, and yet all shared a love of the NBA and basketball.

I will miss being able to call myself a Walt Disney World Cast Member, which itself represents such a recognizable and proud culture of providing the best customer service in the world.

I don’t know yet what awaits me next, I do have some perspectives, have had some interviews I’m waiting to hear back on, have some interviews scheduled in the future, and have continued to fill out applications during my days, as I have done since around mid-June when I realized the prospects of us reopening were very slim in the new normal.

Thank you to everyone at Disney Springs and The NBA Experience, this isn’t the end but just a new beginning. Who knows maybe we will be back at Disney someday.

At this time, there is no word on what the future will hold for the NBA Experience at Disney Springs, which opened in June 2019.

These Disney Springs employees are among the thousands of Disney World Cast Members who lost their jobs in the past week. As news broke that 28,000 Disneyland and Disney World employees would soon be laid off, stories of non-unionized Cast Members and performers have come to light.

Our hearts go out to all of the Disney Cast Members at Disneyland, Disney World, and beyond who have been affected by these layoffs. If you are in need of resources or you are looking for a way to help, click here.