The State of the Park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg

[Bring Back Questor 87]

Ended up skipping a visit to the park on Saturday and just spent time in Colonial WMB instead. My buddy who has never been to the park before was interested in going, but saw the single day ticket price and balked. I also did not want to be responsible for a massively disappointing day hyping up this park when its failures keep piling up at the door for the costs commanded.

Hard to describe how great this place once was to a person who can't even grasp going for the price of admission alone.

 

[Jonesta6]

There are times when cashing in on goodwill is a financial necessity. Cashing in on goodwill for stock buybacks is very much not necessary.

Dumb thought, but if the board bought back all stock and privatized, would you think the parks would be better, worse, or the same?

 

[Icer]

Better, I think there would be a bigger shift towards "maximizing the potential of what we have" rather than unlimited expansion and pissing away what is already there.

That being said, highly doubt they bring this back private when the whole reason Blackstone did the SEAS thing was to make it its own indepently traded entity.

 

[warfelg]

Dumb thought, but if the board bought back all stock and privatized, would you think the parks would be better, worse, or the same?

Hard to tell. Some places let it run down to run at a loss to tax reasons, some invest heavily to not make money on it and get tax breaks. I think the good thing about a possible privatization would be no share holders are there to push purely for profits. Of course on the flip side, lack of share holders means there's no one to hold the board accountable.

The issue is the number of companies that would be willing to look at something like BGW/BGT as "break even" opportunities is shrinking....fast. I would be surprised if back in the AB days they cared much about profits off the park as the beer sales is what drove the company. When InBev came, I wouldn't be shocked to learn that profits were prioritized a little more, but not at the expense of customer satisfaction. But the current owners being a venture capital group....this is what they always do, they buy depressed assets, bump the earnings, and sell it off at a massive profit.

 

[mtpelepele]

Buying it all back and privatizing? No chance in hell. Increasing the perceived financial value of the parks through all of these consumer unfriendly cost saving practices so they can sell off everything piecemeal? Yeah, I still think that's gonna happen, and I think it's only been prevented as long as it has by first Blackfish, and then COVID.

 

[warfelg]

Buying it all back and privatizing? No chance in hell. Increasing the perceived financial value of the parks through all of these consumer unfriendly cost saving practices so they can sell off everything piecemeal? Yeah, I still think that's gonna happen, and I think it's only been prevented as long as it has by first Blackfish, and then COVID.

Sad thing is, it's going to get too expensive to see someone 'good' buy them out. (talking like Hershend).

 

[mtpelepele]

Unfortunately, I don't see anyone buying the chain. Personal predictions? BGW, Herschend. BGT, Six Flags... if they haven't bankrupted themselves. SWSD, bulldozed for the real estate... although I'd love to see the zoo get ahold of it. SWSA, Cedar Fair, and bye bye to the animals. SWO, Universal, and same to the animals. SP, Merlin or Parques Reunidos. But that's just, like, my opinion man.

 

[warfelg]

Hasn’t there been a long rumored thing that the BG’s have to go together?

I can see BGW and BGT going Herschend together and the SW’s not going anywhere for a little while longer. I can see SWSD/SWSA/SP going Merlin’s or Parques together eventually. Don’t forget there’s now a SP in SD as well that can impact that.

 

[Icer]

Hasn’t there been a long rumored thing that the BG’s have to go together?

To maintain the naming, most likely. It would be possible to split them and keep the Busch branding but I highly doubt AB would feel like negotiating that out.

 

[Riboflavenus]

To maintain the naming, most likely. It would be possible to split them and keep the Busch branding but I highly doubt AB would feel like negotiating that out.

Maybe Disney could buy them and rename them Duff Gardens, since they own the rights to the Simpsons now.

 

[ludmarco]

This is making me wish I was a millionaire just to buy Busch and fix so much of what has gone downhill.

 

[Mushroom]

Unfortunately, I don't see anyone buying the chain. Personal predictions? BGW, Herschend. BGT, Six Flags... if they haven't bankrupted themselves. SWSD, bulldozed for the real estate... although I'd love to see the zoo get ahold of it. SWSA, Cedar Fair, and bye bye to the animals. SWO, Universal, and same to the animals. SP, Merlin or Parques Reunidos. But that's just, like, my opinion man.

The vibe I’m getting isn’t that they’re setting up the parks to be bought by a competing theme park chain — they’re setting them up to be bought by another private equity firm. My guess is that these insane cost-cutting and price-inflating measures are meant to increase the apparent financial value of the parks to another Wall Street company that just wants to scoop SEAS up as an asset for their portfolio.

A company like CF, for example, probably understands that the SEAS parks won’t be able to sustain the level of profitability they’re achieving right now. But Hillpath might be able to tempt another money-focused finance company to buy SEAS for the profits.

 

[warfelg]

The vibe I’m getting isn’t that they’re setting up the parks to be bought by a competing theme park chain — they’re setting them up to be bought by another private equity firm. My guess is that these insane cost-cutting and price-inflating measures are meant to increase the apparent financial value of the parks to another Wall Street company that just wants to scoop SEAS up as an asset for their portfolio.

A company like CF, for example, probably understands that the SEAS parks won’t be able to sustain the level of profitability they’re achieving right now. But Hillpath might be able to tempt another money-focused finance company to buy SEAS for the profits.

Maybe. But if profiting is optimized as much as possible those places know that there isn’t much more to optimize so they would have to buy, invest, take the hit, then reoptimize. Especially if they are looking for quick investments.

I do think the best investments would be to split up the chain. The bones for the theme elements are there at BGW/T to get back to what they were easily. If I were a smaller park chain with a good F&B program, relationships with companies that make flats, and wanted a bigger footprint, I would be all over it. I know I said maybe too expensive for Herschend but they would make a lot of sense.

CF really knows how to do good “secondary” parks, so if I were them I would be all about SWO.

That leaves SWSD, SWSA, DiscoCove, SPP, and SPSD as the remaining parks that some investment company might look at because they aren’t huge but offer potential profit expanding avenues.

 

[Coasternerd]

Hasn’t there been a long rumored thing that the BG’s have to go together?

As far as I remember, SEAS has the ownership of the name so long as they own those parks. Should they sell them, the new owners would have to negotiate to keep the name or rebrand the parks.
Edit: seas owns the rights to the name*

 

[Icer]

I do think the best investments would be to split up the chain. The bones for the theme elements are there at BGW/T to get back to what they were easily. If I were a smaller park chain with a good F&B program, relationships with companies that make flats, and wanted a bigger footprint, I would be all over it. I know I said maybe too expensive for Herschend but they would make a lot of sense.

I agree. I honestly think it is perfect for Herschend to take on a bigger investment and operate on a larger scale, and I think most people agree they would be the best to take over.

As far as I remember, SEAS has the ownership of the name so long as they own those parks. Should they sell them, the new owners would have to negotiate to keep the name or rebrand the parks.

There is a perpetual licensing agreement for the "Busch Gardens" name to SEAS. SEAS cannot own this name, they are licensed the rights.

 

[Coasternerd]

There is a perpetual licensing agreement for the "Busch" name to SEAS. SEAS cannot own this name, they are licensed the rights.

I realized that as soon as I hit send on my original response lol- updated it right before you sent this.

 

[warfelg]

I agree. I honestly think it is perfect for Herschend to take on a bigger investment and operate on a larger scale, and I think most people agree they would be the best to take over.

While they are I wouldn’t mind if others wanted in. Koch Development has done nice with Holiday World and would be fun. If Merlin wanted to go bigger then it would be a great ownership group. And I went to a very strange place in my mind….what if HerCo wanted to expand.

 

[Icer]

I realized that as soon as I hit send on my original response lol- updated it right before you sent this.

If we want to get technical, they also don't "own" the rights, the rights are still owned by AB (AB InBev) though they are licensed out to SEAS for use. Picture this as more of an indefinite loan. I am honestly unsure who would prosecute infringements on the brand usage during the licensing agreement, it probably comes down to the language in it. I imagine AB wants to be as hands off as possible with it, they probably just enjoy a cool check as part of the deal.

 

[ludmarco]

There’s no chance Anheiser Busch could buy the park back is there?

 

[panopticon31]

There’s no chance Anheiser Busch could buy the park back is there?

Anheiser Busch no longer exists.