Speculation Grows Over Potential Sale of Six Flags Parks

When Six Flags Entertainment merged with Cedar Point, theme park fans were cautiously optimistic. The merger of Cedar Point/Six Flags makes the new company the largest theme park operator in North America, with 42 locations.

However, fans were apprehensive when the two sides merged. Would Cedar Park’s values remain in place, or would Six Flags Park’s stinginess take over? Would this mean there would be an explosion of growth at the existing parks with Cedar Fair Parks IP coming to Six Flags Parks?

The two sides already made some policy changes that fans hated and some that fans loved. Six Flags introduced a restrictive new policy for content creators that restricted what they could say about the parks while at the same time introducing a season pass that would allow entry into all 42 parks.

Among the rules, content creators cannot create anything that “does not adhere to the park’s values” or that “actively spreads misinformation about the parks.” The concern for content creators is that those two rules are so broadly written that they could also include any negative information about the park experience.

Now, it appears that 42 parks may be too many for the new theme park giant. At its last quarterly meeting last July, Six Flags CEO Richard Zimmerman said:

We have completed our initial review having identified properties that are less strategic and critical to our long-term growth objectives, properties that we would consider divesting under the right circumstances.

At the time, there was some uncertainty about which parks would be up for sale, but now, the Orange County Register has looked into it and come up with a list of six parks they believe Six Flags will be putting up for sale soon. The six are: 

Frontier City (Oklahoma City), Six Flags Darien Lake (Buffalo, New York), Valleyfair (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Worlds of Fun (Kansas City, Missouri), Six Flags Great Escape (Albany, New York) and Michigan’s Adventure (Grand Rapids).

These are the six smallest Six Flags parks, and some are at a geographical disadvantage. The two in upstate New York seem to crowd each other out, and one will likely go.

The other four don’t have the attendance figures that some of the larger Six Flags parks have or are located near other parks in the conglomerate’s portfolio.

So, if you live near one of these parks, you better get there this summer, or they may soon be gone.