SeaWorld this month roiled the theme park fan community with an unsolicited offer to buy the popular Cedar Fair chain of amusement parks. If the deal were to go through, it would bring Knott’s Berry Farm, Gilroy Gardens and California’s Great America under the same corporate management as SeaWorld San Diego and the new Sesame Place park in Chula Vista.
Would that be a good thing for theme park fans? I polled readers on ThemeParkInsider.com and more than half said they did not want the deal. The others were evenly split between those who were OK with the takeover and those who would have preferred if it were Cedar Fair buying SeaWorld.
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One of the big questions raised by SeaWorld’s proposal is, who would run this expanded theme park company? SeaWorld seems to have installed a revolving door on its C-suite, having run through twice as many CEOs as Cedar Fair over the past decade. Would this deal bring management stability to SeaWorld, or would it just throw Cedar Fair into turmoil?
In addition to Knott’s and California’s Great America, Cedar Fair owns Cedar Point and Kings Island in Ohio, Canada’s Wonderland just outside Toronto and half a dozen other seasonal parks around the United States, including Kings Dominion, just up the road from SeaWorld’s Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia. SeaWorld also owns theme parks in Orlando and San Antonio in addition to Busch Gardens Tampa and the original Sesame Place just outside Philadelphia.
Cedar Fair is no stranger to corporate deals. The company in 2019 turned down an acquisition offer from Six Flags, at a price $10 a share higher than what SeaWorld now is offering. In 2010, Cedar Fair spurned a proposal from Apollo Global Management. It’s worth noting that one of Apollo’s principals at the time was Scott Ross, who is now SeaWorld’s chairman.
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In 2006, Cedar Fair was on the other side of the table, buying five Paramount-branded parks — including Kings Island and Kings Dominion – from CBS Corporation when CBS decided to get out of the theme park business.
With this proposal and its impending opening of four roller coasters at parks across the country, SeaWorld seems to be looking to move toward more traditional theme park attractions rather than relying on the animal exhibits and shows for which the company long has been known. Without the Hollywood studio tie-ins that allow Disney and Universal to build nine-figure attractions based on iconic entertainment franchises, Cedar Fair, SeaWorld and Six Flags must take different approaches to appeal to family audiences.
Cedar Fair does roller coasters, kiddie lands and other traditional theme park attractions as well as anyone in the business. It’s a great chain, so it’s no wonder why competitors such as Six Flags and SeaWorld would want to be associated with Cedar Fair’s parks. But fans don’t want to lose what has made Cedar Fair parks so special over the years. If SeaWorld wants these parks, they don’t need just to win over the Cedar Fair board. They need to win over Cedar Fair’s fans, too.