News SeaWorld Makes $3.4 Billion Takeover Bid for Cedar Fair
- Thread starter Seaworld History
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If that happens, which I would love to see, say goodbye to alcohol and HoS. I'll miss the beer though. Kinda inseperable with the Busch name and all.
I still love the Busch and SeaWorld parks being together. I would hate to see them split. If they were ever purchased I'd prefer to see Disney or Universal acquire the whole chain, but I don't think they would be interested in all the parks, if any.
SeaWorld going on the offensive might help protect them from any unsolicited attempts.
SeaWorld going on the offensive might help protect them from any unsolicited attempts.
I dunno that I would jump to that conclusion so quickly. They do have a partnership with Kentucky Kingdom and they stated that they have no intenions of pulling the plug on alcohol sales.
Also, the revenue at Busch from beer, food and wine, bierfest etc is... Significant
Exactly. They are keeping the booze at Kentucky Kingdom so why would they leave it there and not here.
Herschend ritualistically killing alcohol sales: the amusement industry urban myth that just won’t die.
I've been really trying to make sense of this over the last few days....and it really doesn't. I just doesn't. It does allow them to potentially enter many many more markets they aren't currently in. But if they were to purchase Cedar Fair there's areas (most notably the I-95 corridor) that become super crammed with their parks. I just can't picture Dorney-KD-BGW-Carrowinds all being SEAS parks and there's not enough competition going on. Even wider than that you could look at the NE as a whole and have Dorney-KC-BGW-CW-CP-KI with SFA-SFGA-HP-Knoble-Kennywood as the competition.
If I had to venture, I wonder if this is more about SEAS trying to prove they have the financial capability to buy parks from anyone. Because I can see them ding something like trying to go after Worlds of Fun, maybe something like Kennywood or Darien Lake, then I could see them do something like chase a small park like Coney Island (Cincinnati Ohio), Santa's Village (Chicago), or Adventure City (LA) and turn it into a "third" stand alone Sesame Place.
Most likely, with their desire to get into having some hotels, this is most likely about getting a park with a hotel attached already and issuing it to help build a resort program. If that's the case, as SEAS, I would put everything on the table for Knott's and Knott's alone. It's already in a place to be turnkey on everything. The water park being separated is more of a SEAS staple than a CF staple. There's a hotel on property. And there's space to do some expansion if you wanted.
In fact I'm talking myself into Knott's becoming a SEAS park. And not using a Sea World name on it, but keeping Knott's in the title, I would call it: "Busch Gardens: Knott's America". Pay tribute to Knott's Berry's history and name. It's kinda America themed so the 3 Busch Gardens parks are all themed after a different continent. You got WCUSA, so I would push to rename the 3 Busch Connected water parks to match like I did with BG's. Adventure Islands -> Water Country Caribbean, and Knott's Soak City -> Water Country Baja California. I would take the parking lot by Western Ave and make it a 5-story parking (yes I know that's expensive, oh well), but that frees you up to have more parking for the hotel, and the parking along Grand Ave can become a Sesame Place park for the park, and it makes the Knott's property now an attractive multi-day visit. Heck I would do garage parking over the space closest to the park, only 2 levels over a wide space. Sell it as premium parking to park under the covering, up top do solar panels for electric car parking, and you could take the little bump out of parking by Soak City to expand the water park and build it a new entrance. That would end up about the same size as the water park in Tampa, which would make it a good 2/3 of a day. And it really makes it much more than something that Disneyland and Universal Hollywood don't have in a dedicated full day water park.
If I had to venture, I wonder if this is more about SEAS trying to prove they have the financial capability to buy parks from anyone. Because I can see them ding something like trying to go after Worlds of Fun, maybe something like Kennywood or Darien Lake, then I could see them do something like chase a small park like Coney Island (Cincinnati Ohio), Santa's Village (Chicago), or Adventure City (LA) and turn it into a "third" stand alone Sesame Place.
Most likely, with their desire to get into having some hotels, this is most likely about getting a park with a hotel attached already and issuing it to help build a resort program. If that's the case, as SEAS, I would put everything on the table for Knott's and Knott's alone. It's already in a place to be turnkey on everything. The water park being separated is more of a SEAS staple than a CF staple. There's a hotel on property. And there's space to do some expansion if you wanted.
In fact I'm talking myself into Knott's becoming a SEAS park. And not using a Sea World name on it, but keeping Knott's in the title, I would call it: "Busch Gardens: Knott's America". Pay tribute to Knott's Berry's history and name. It's kinda America themed so the 3 Busch Gardens parks are all themed after a different continent. You got WCUSA, so I would push to rename the 3 Busch Connected water parks to match like I did with BG's. Adventure Islands -> Water Country Caribbean, and Knott's Soak City -> Water Country Baja California. I would take the parking lot by Western Ave and make it a 5-story parking (yes I know that's expensive, oh well), but that frees you up to have more parking for the hotel, and the parking along Grand Ave can become a Sesame Place park for the park, and it makes the Knott's property now an attractive multi-day visit. Heck I would do garage parking over the space closest to the park, only 2 levels over a wide space. Sell it as premium parking to park under the covering, up top do solar panels for electric car parking, and you could take the little bump out of parking by Soak City to expand the water park and build it a new entrance. That would end up about the same size as the water park in Tampa, which would make it a good 2/3 of a day. And it really makes it much more than something that Disneyland and Universal Hollywood don't have in a dedicated full day water park.
I have a hard time visualizing a realistic SEAS-CF plan that doesn't include selling one or more of the combined stable of parks.
I think they would too. Just personally that would be the crown jewel that SEAS should target. Unfortunately I think CF sees it as a crown jewel too. But taking that and WoF with the Schlitterbahns would be a good pull.
Why do you think a park like Knott’s would need to be renamed at all? There’s enormous value in the Knott’s brand name and recognition.
I don’t think it needs to be renamed, rather SEAS would want one of their names tied to it. Brand renaming when something is bought isn’t uncommon. Heck wouldn’t shock me if SEAS bought a couple CF parks to hear of renaming due to contractual reasons.
If anything, SEAS should be eager to have more parks without their name on it.
SeaWorld as a name still carries a large negative stigma. Cedar Fair has a bit of a bulletproof naming convention; to the average consumer there is no indication that these parks are all owned by the same people at face value. To all of my friends, they were shocked to know Cedar Fair was as present as they are when they learned about this news since a lot of them are in the investment sphere. If one of CF parks were to have a negative publicity encounter for some reason or another, the rest of the parks would function essentially unimpacted. People don't need a brand name to go to their local park, they just will. And SEAS acquiring these parks with well founded local communities as well as a small chunk for each that will travel (with the exception of Cedar Point and Knotts to an extent), they don't gain anything from putting a new brand on it. If anything, you piss off some locals and add the risk of another SeaWorld style fallout if something were to happen again in the future. The two Busch Gardens parks have animal encounters, and if for some abstract reason a video surfaced in today's age where someone at either BGT or BGW was treating an animal poorly, why let that residual damage hit more parks than it needs?
To me, from a business perspective, I don't see what you gain from introducing chain wide naming uniformity when Cedar Fair proved you don't need cohesive front-facing branding to be a theme park juggernaut.
SeaWorld as a name still carries a large negative stigma. Cedar Fair has a bit of a bulletproof naming convention; to the average consumer there is no indication that these parks are all owned by the same people at face value. To all of my friends, they were shocked to know Cedar Fair was as present as they are when they learned about this news since a lot of them are in the investment sphere. If one of CF parks were to have a negative publicity encounter for some reason or another, the rest of the parks would function essentially unimpacted. People don't need a brand name to go to their local park, they just will. And SEAS acquiring these parks with well founded local communities as well as a small chunk for each that will travel (with the exception of Cedar Point and Knotts to an extent), they don't gain anything from putting a new brand on it. If anything, you piss off some locals and add the risk of another SeaWorld style fallout if something were to happen again in the future. The two Busch Gardens parks have animal encounters, and if for some abstract reason a video surfaced in today's age where someone at either BGT or BGW was treating an animal poorly, why let that residual damage hit more parks than it needs?
To me, from a business perspective, I don't see what you gain from introducing chain wide naming uniformity when Cedar Fair proved you don't need cohesive front-facing branding to be a theme park juggernaut.
Largely agree with this. The merger value is in cross-selling and jacking up prices in newly non-competitive markets. There may be some unique cases that leveraging a SEAS name would add value, but in general keeping unique names is probably safer from a brand perspective.
I could absolutely see prices getting raised almost instantly for KD,BGW and Carowinds.
3 park basic memberships starting at $249/person. Blackout dates apply. 1 and 2 park starting at $159.
I feel like my assessment of the rational here is pretty different than what I'm seeing a lot of other people theorize.
I don't actually believe that SEAS cares that much about any of their brands being national staples. Their existing parks are already pretty diverse and SEAS has never seemed to be very interested in doing much/any cross-marketing within the chain. Hence, I don't think that adding additional territory actually helps them that much.
What I believe SEAS is interested in is identifying properties and regions with unrealized value/profit potential. This has been the SEAS playbook for years now—and it's why SEAS has accomplished so much growth. They saw untapped potential in their collection of parks and began to squeeze those oranges harder to make a whole lot more juice. Now that the squeeze is in at their existing parks with budgets sliced as severely as possible, many aspects centralized or outsourced, standardized, profit-forward events plastered across all of them, year-round ops expanded everywhere possible, and regular additions precisely engineered for the absolute maximum marketability : investment ratio, they need more parks to squeeze in order to continue displaying significant growth.
This is where we get to Cedar Fair. If I put myself in SEAS' shoes, in FUN, I see a chain of parks with an antiquated pass system selling admission products at far below what the market can bare. Additionally, many FUN parks that could run year-round, don't (GCA and Caro are SUPER obvious in this regard) and many of these properties don't have a robust collection of seasonal events with which they can successfully drive significant in-park spending increases during current low seasons.
In my mind, the playbook looks like this:
Compare that to a property like Carowinds or California's Great America. They both operate combined amusement and water parks, neither are known for their special events, both seem under-invested in, they're both relatively cheap parks despite being located right next to huge, often affluent, population centers, and only one of them has any on-site accommodations. The ceiling at one of those two parks (or many of the others in the Cedar Fair chain) is FAR higher than it is at, say, Knott's or even the likes of Cedar Point.
Basically, my theory is that SEAS would be thrilled to get their hands on the entire chain, but I suspect that the company is more interested in the "fixer upper" properties as that's where SEAS has found enormous success so far. That is, of course, in addition to the parks in markets in which SEAS already competes.
I don't actually believe that SEAS cares that much about any of their brands being national staples. Their existing parks are already pretty diverse and SEAS has never seemed to be very interested in doing much/any cross-marketing within the chain. Hence, I don't think that adding additional territory actually helps them that much.
What I believe SEAS is interested in is identifying properties and regions with unrealized value/profit potential. This has been the SEAS playbook for years now—and it's why SEAS has accomplished so much growth. They saw untapped potential in their collection of parks and began to squeeze those oranges harder to make a whole lot more juice. Now that the squeeze is in at their existing parks with budgets sliced as severely as possible, many aspects centralized or outsourced, standardized, profit-forward events plastered across all of them, year-round ops expanded everywhere possible, and regular additions precisely engineered for the absolute maximum marketability : investment ratio, they need more parks to squeeze in order to continue displaying significant growth.
This is where we get to Cedar Fair. If I put myself in SEAS' shoes, in FUN, I see a chain of parks with an antiquated pass system selling admission products at far below what the market can bare. Additionally, many FUN parks that could run year-round, don't (GCA and Caro are SUPER obvious in this regard) and many of these properties don't have a robust collection of seasonal events with which they can successfully drive significant in-park spending increases during current low seasons.
In my mind, the playbook looks like this:
- Obtain a park
- Cut guest experience-related spend as far as the market will bare
- Centralize or contract out as much of the park experience as makes sense
- If feasible, split off the water park into a separately-ticketed property
- Debut a subscription-based pass program with single or multi-park regional (read: dry park and water park combo) and chainwide offerings
- Roll out a constantly rotating selection of special events and upcharge opportunities
- Add a new, marketable attraction every year
- Off the back of that new attraction, raise admission product prices every year and sell upcharge products
- If possible, move the park to year-round operations or explore other ways to use the property over the off-season (drive-thru experiences for instance)
- If reasonable, evaluate the potential of a third, smaller, kids-focused gate (Sesame Place) and/or accommodation opportunities (hotels/resorts/campgrounds)
Compare that to a property like Carowinds or California's Great America. They both operate combined amusement and water parks, neither are known for their special events, both seem under-invested in, they're both relatively cheap parks despite being located right next to huge, often affluent, population centers, and only one of them has any on-site accommodations. The ceiling at one of those two parks (or many of the others in the Cedar Fair chain) is FAR higher than it is at, say, Knott's or even the likes of Cedar Point.
Basically, my theory is that SEAS would be thrilled to get their hands on the entire chain, but I suspect that the company is more interested in the "fixer upper" properties as that's where SEAS has found enormous success so far. That is, of course, in addition to the parks in markets in which SEAS already competes.
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The fact that it’s been one full week and we haven’t heard anything official since the original article was posted absolutely TERRIFIES me.
I’ve operated under the assumption that the longer it takes to hear anything, the more likely they’re gonna come forward with some sort of deal, whether it’s a full buyout or a partial acquisition. I think this way because it only took Cedar Fair three days to say “No, Thanks” to the Six Flags deal. Am I wrong to do so?
I’ve operated under the assumption that the longer it takes to hear anything, the more likely they’re gonna come forward with some sort of deal, whether it’s a full buyout or a partial acquisition. I think this way because it only took Cedar Fair three days to say “No, Thanks” to the Six Flags deal. Am I wrong to do so?
As someone else said, this thing could take months before we get a definitive answer either way. The consensus among experts seems to be that this is at least a slightly better deal than the SF offer in 2019, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s taking longer for a decision to be announced. CF has an obligation to its shareholders to make an exhaustive analysis of this offer and make the best possible decision on their behalf, so regardless of whether or not they end up taking the offer, recklessly rejecting a potentially beneficial offer would definitely not be in shareholders’ best interests.
Doesn’t Knotts give SEAS a stranglehold on the OC/SD market, if you consider Disney as a fairly different product market. Magic Mountain is there but that’s a long drive even from much of OC. This lets SEAS have more pricing power at both Sea World and Knotts while cross selling passes.