History of the Los Angeles Angels team general manager, under whose watch the Angels eventually won their first World Series Championship. Although Disney did not technically acquire a controlling interest in the team until after Autry's death, for all practical purposes it ran the team (the Autry loyalists on the board acted as "silent partners") through its Anaheim Sports subsidiary, which also owned the NHL's Mighty Ducks of Anaheim at the time. Disney, of course, had been a catalyst for the development of and population growth in Orange County, having opened its Disneyland theme park in Anaheim in 1955. Autry had named Walt Disney himself to
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts theme parks hosted over 140.4 million guests, making Disney Parks the world's most visited theme park company worldwide,<ref name="TEA/AECOM"></ref> with United Kingdom-based Merlin Entertainments coming in second. It is by far Disney's largest business segment according to employee headcount, with approximately 130,000 of the company's 180,000 employees as of 2015. In March 2018, Parks and Resorts was merged with Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media to form Walt Disney Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products. In 1949, Ice Capades added a Disney segment to its performances. Costumes from those shows were used at the opening of Disneyland in 1955 with some