http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=news

I love this at the end of the article.

"Six Flags is trying to draw more families to its properties by banning smoking, planting flowers and spending $60 million on hiring. The company is also adding entertainment including fireworks shows and parades. "

If you plant flowers, they will come back.

Does SF own the land that EG sits on, or is that a land-lease deal?

Does anyone else think that $650M doesn't sound like that unreasonable of a bid? (Especially if they don't own the land at EG...) Afterall, SFMM's real value is in its real estate, and the whole home/real estate market is in a real downturn right now, which somewhat depresses its immediate value for development of housing. (Of course, it'll come back...real estate always bounces back.)

Other than that, there is SFDL (which is a big piece of land, but in a "low rent" area), and several waterparks which don't have a lot of real estate, or generate that large of revenues. Considering that CF was able to pick up SFWOA for only $145M, I just don't think $650M sounds that unreasonable for the parks in question...

Note, too, that the real estate investors offered more than did the park people. Also, SFEG is on owned property, not leased. The site is a former brownfields site, and has limited development potential for other purposes.

See also this:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/061109/six10-q.html

This is why I hate Six Flags

Lets sell our parks so we can build another mall or condo community. This is one thing that has always infuriated me.

The worst example ever is when Gaylord Entertainment redeveloped the land that Opryland USA sat on so they could build a new Mills mall. It is just another mall, nothing more. Ruined an absolutely gorgeous park with great rides and entertainment for a stinking mall. Folks, Opryland had better entertainment than Dollywood, Disney, or anyother park. So how bad of a decision was this for Gaylord? Well they have currently bought over 120 acres that sit adjacent to the Opryland Hotel. They also recently trademarked Opryland USA. Hmm looks like someone is thinking about building a new park. Thanks for ruining a great one in the process. Idiots...

Well, I have to wonder if Herschend Family Entertainment Corp. was interested in the Paramount Parks. I have heard that there was another competitor to Cedar Fair interested in the parks, but that competitor has never been named.

Very interesting news. I am a little shocked at the prices that were offered. I mean, Cedar Fair paid $1.24 billion for five parks, plus a management contract at another park and the Star Trek: The Experience. Granted, the Paramount Parks are likely leaps and bounds ahead of some of those Six Flags parks in making money, and customer experience.

I agree with you RailRider,

Gaylord's closing of Opryland may have been one of the great Amusement Park disasters of all time. That park was great. The theming was very well done, the park was set in a beautiful forest, with some very uniques rides and great shows. I still look back at what they did with Opryland and just shake my head. Why didn't they just buy the current 120 acres and build the mall on that and leave the park. It would have saved them a lot of money.

Well, I have to wonder if Herschend Family Entertainment Corp. was interested in the Paramount Parks. I have heard that there was another competitor to Cedar Fair interested in the parks, but that competitor has never been named.

My money is still on Blackstone as the "mystery" company that ran up CF's purchase price to $1.24B

I'd have to agree that the Greatest Loss to Theme Parks was the loss of Opryland. Gaylord doesn't make a lot of bad, poor or ill informed moves but that certainly was one of them.

That was a bad period of time. Shortly thereafter, they almost took WSM to popular music instead of country.

Seems they have wised up of late.

That was a bad period of time. Shortly thereafter, they almost took WSM to popular music instead of country.

Seems they have wised up of late.

The Grand Old Opry still sells out every weekend.

That is one gorgeous theater.

Used to be cool to be able to just walk over to the park from the theater and then right over to the hotel.

Yes that was a great time. I was lucky enough to see Alan Jackson on his first apperance at the Opry.

Today's LA Times, which requires registration, reports that Herschend's (the company that owns and operates, among other things, Dollywood) bid does NOT include Magic Mountain, in which the company says it has no interest.

That is interesting, Interpreter. SFMM was one of the highly speculated about parks that was supposedly on the "chopping block" since it was stated that park does not fit in with their "family" type approach.

MM IS still in play. It's just that Herschend isn't interested in it.

As far as investing in a park, I would personally take SFMM. It has a great collection of coasters. All you need is the capital to get them in good running order and remove Flashback. All MM needs is some more family friendly rides and they would be more like Cedar Point. There's no reason you can't have an extreme coasters park with family type rides mixed in.

True, but also a park of that size and with that many rides is expensive to opperate. Besides the simple daily opperation expense, there would also be a great expense in getting all of the rides in reliable opperational order, which is unheard of for sfmm. So once a company were to buy sfmm, which would comand a high price because of its size and number of rides, they would then have to spend a great deal to get the park running more efficiently and also spend a great deal to keep the park that way. SFMM got to big during the wars with CP and they completely neglected other areas of the park during that time. Hence their problems now.