As far as a potential sale goes: Interesting, and not unexpected. If true (and if WoF and Great Escape are being sold with their respective water parks), I didn't expect Six Flags to pull out of Missouri entirely. Then again, none of the major Missouri parks except maybe Silver Dollar City have been meaningfully growing over the last 20 years, so I do kinda get it. One could extrapolate from the lower-cost investments at SFSL and WoF over the years that there isn't a strong ROI there, for any number of reasons.
As far as that name goes: Oof. "Enchanted Parks" is the least compelling name I've ever heard, lol. United Parks used to take the cake, but it at least falls in that realm of Tacky Corporate Names where you could conceivably imagine, if incorrectly, "Yeah, okay, maybe the first owner decades ago wasn't super imaginative and they've just stuck with the name." "Enchanted Parks St. Louis" sounds like the first-draft name of a long-closed amusement park from a Scooby-Doo episode where the gang gets chased out by Old Man Peabody in a ghost costume.
It should be noted, IAM seems to make their money by "flipping" parks that aren't doing great, then selling them. They seem to have largely owned small water parks and FECs. WoF, SFSL, MA, and Great Escape would likely be some of the largest properties they've ever owned. I'd be extremely curious to see what about them gets "flipped" if the plan is to resell them. One could assume that Herschend has already had their opportunity to make an offer on any properties they want, so the questions that immediately come to mind are:
1. Who would be the remaining prospective buyers once these parks are flipped?
2. What kind of operating budget would prospective buyers be able to commit to these parks? (I assume it would be less than what is currently needed, or else those buyers would presumably have already offered to purchase them directly from Six Flags.)
3. What additions/removals will be needed to make those parks and their operating budgets more appealing for prospective buyers?
Not to beat a dead horse, but as someone who thinks that Michigan's Adventure overexpanded years ago and that's why it doesn't get significant additions, I will be extremely curious to see if some rides disappear there or have further measures taken to reduce operating costs. RMC is comparatively cheap and they've already started replacing track on Shivering Timbers, so I look for the rest of the ride to get I-Box track but keep the same profile. Presumably something similar will happen with Wolverine Wildcat. I wonder what the future holds for Corkscrew, Thunderhawk, or Mad Mouse.
Camille Jourden-Mark, whose father bought MA in the 1960's and who had been VP and GM of MA from 1988 till 2024's Six Flags corporate restructuring, has been replaced by Carson Weingart, who had previously been director of food and beverage at Cedar Point. Camille has been quoted as saying that Dick Kinzel told her after the purchase to "run the park as her own," so one could assume that the corporate team has largely been hands-off with MA for a significant amount of time. That being said, the Jourden family is, as I understand it, no longer involved in major decisions at MA for the first time in decades, so I wonder what happens now that people with presumably less of an emotional attachment to the park are calling the shots, especially if those people are incentivized to make the park seem more appealing to a new buyer.