http://www.politico....0111/47667.html

Rest assured, this WILL affect the Universal parks. How is not yet known for sure, but a spin-off, sale, merger would not in any way surprise me. I can almost clearly see a merger with the Seaworld parks...almost....and am a bit surprised there has not been more speculation about the parks' future.

Are you surprised there hasn't been more speculation on the parks' future on this (and similar) boards, or within the general business community? (Or, both? )

I seem to recall reading at some point that both Universal & Blackstone had a "right of first refusal" clause as part of their joint ownership agreement at Universal Orlando that if either decided to unload their 50% share, the other party had to be offered it first. (I think I read that during the time GE was buying Universal from Vivendi...)

There could be a lot worse scenarios than Blackstone ending up the owners of the parks with some sort of licensing in place with NBC/Universal. From things I've read, it sounds like they've continued to do a pretty good job operating the former BEC parks. (Although, my sister-in-law had quite a few complaints about their day at Sesame Place last Summer & feels it's really gone down since BEC owership. But, as I pointed out to her--sometimes every park just has a bad ops day...)

Yes...but you knew that.

And there are more Universal parks (and some would even say at least one is better than the old Florida once flagship) than just Orlando...

The Wall Street Journal is reporting FCC approval of the deal is imminent, with Department of Justice approval expected shortly thereafter, and deal closing around the end of the month, or so:

http://online.wsj.co...=googlenews_wsj

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the deal is approved, subject to conditions, by both DOJ and the FCC.