As I understand you, it may have been unprofitable in nine out of fifteen years. And the best we know is that it might have been profitable six years ago (but it might have been ten or more). That is hardly much of an endorsement of June's viability. Of course, we don't know if it was barely making money in the six profitable years and lost bucketfulls of cash in the nine unprofitable ones; or vice versa.
Actually, we do know that. I had put a post together with a link to the relevant page but AZ ate it and what you saw was the abbeviated version. There is no doubt that June Mtn was a cumulative money loser since MMSA bought it. But MMSA has been claiming that June has lost money every single year since they bought it, when their own public documents indicate otherwise. the document to which I refer was their pitch to Mono County to allow a real estate development across the street from the base of the mtn and it had data up through the 2005-2006 season. It indicated that June made money in the last 4 years of the period and in two prior years as well. Again, this is not to say that June has been some great money maker - clearly it has not. Rather, it is to bring into question Mammoth's credibility on this issue when they are talking out of both sides of their moth depending upon what message happens to suit them at the time.
I also wonder if, by "FACT", you mean "GUESS", given that you're not able to tell us in which years June was profitable, or by how much.
As indicated above, you should feel free reverting to "FACT".
I also worry about the phrase, "By Mammoth's own preferred measure of profitability," which in business is often a synonym for "unprofitable by most other measures". No one adverts to an eccentric Management-chosen measure if one of the generally accepted measures produces great results.
Let me get this straight. You are choosing to ignore the measure of profitability that Mammoth's own mgmt chooses to use when assessing its financial performance? Instead, you are simply choosing to accept at face value their claim that it has been unprofitable for the last 25 years straight? How can such a claim be believed if Mammoth can select whatever financial metric that happens to serve its purpose that day? This is before we even get into thornier issues like attribution of season pass revenue. FWIW, the "eccentric" measure MMSA uses is called Resort Operating Income - essentially operating cash flow. I know - way out of the accounting box.
I mean, businesspeople are not usually motivated to get out of profitable businesses.
That's not the question though. There's no doubt June wasn't profitable as currrently run. The question is whether they were motivated to make June profitable in the first place. As discussed in my initial post, what would be the benefit to MMSA of driving higher traffic to June at a yield of $50/day when they could instead drive them to Mammoth at a yield of $100/day? The math isn't difficult here.
It may be that their strategy for making the best of June was not optimal. That is all the more reason to say that this move is for the best, as perhaps it will be taken over by a new operator who better understands June's potential.
It'll be interesting, though, to see whether they are willing to allow a competitor into their footprint, who might conceivably make a lot more of June than MMSA ever did.
That is indeed a good question. My guess is that MMSA will do everything in their power to prevent June's takeover by a well-capitalized group (e.g. Vail, CNL, Boyne, etc...), assuming one would be interested at all (which I doubt). I think the more likely path, and the one that is probably in June's long term interest, is that a local ownership group takes over and operates the mtn along low cost lines with three areas of focus:
1) Low-cost skiing for locals/families from June, Lee Vining and Bridgeport
2) Reasonably priced alternative to Mammoth for SoCal families seeking a true Sierra experience (snow, terrain, scenery, absence of LA noise)
3) Gateway to some of the best lift-accessed sidecountry in North America. A one-hour skin brings you to a variety of 4000 vert runs featuring wide open ramps, chutes, and trees in 300-350" of Eastern Sierra snow.
Day care
Lift/lodging deals with local inns
Single lift rides for $15-20 to access the BC
Guided skin tours or maybe even a cat
You would think that a ski area in financial trouble would experiement with some of these ideas. They are not exactly radical, but none of them were implemented under MMSA in recent years. Hopefully, new ownership will be the result of this decision and they will be able to operate June along the lines that it's phyical assets (natural and man-made) and starting point require.
