[QUOTE=bgwfreak]
Seriously the guy owns an NFL team. What does he know about running an [url="http:///#"]amusement park[/url](s)?
[/QUOTE]Probably more than running a football team. All he knows is business, and an amusement park is more business oriented than a football team.

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My guess is it wouldn't actually run the actual parks...Thats what GMs are for. Usually the owner of a company like Six Flags or Cedar Fair lets their GMs do the job of maintaining each of the parks. But when a park wants to build a new attraction, they'll have to bring it to his attention and of course get it approved. All he'll be doing is handling the business part of the company, I highly doubt he'll be involved in the actual "running an amusment park" part, like I said...That's what the GMs job is.

Well he really needs to be a leader in the sense of having a "vision" for the company.

Look at how Disney has done with Eisner. I'm sorry but he doesn't seem to have any vision for the company like Walt Disney had. In my opinion that has contributed to their floundering as a company in many ways.

They haven't put out a decent animated movie in ages maybe like 8 years now. Their live action movies have been ok. The parks seem to just be doing the same thing in a lot of ways. That's a generalization of course, of course they have been building new parks and such but look at the "success" of DCA. Does anyone actually go there anymore? lol

I'm just using this as an example. A CEO or whatever of a company doesn't make or break a company, but he/she can make a huge difference in getting it moving in the right direction.

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[QUOTE=BatwingFan SFA]
I wouldn't be suprised if SFA's close proximity to Fed-Ex field is the entire reason for his involvement in the company.....he wants to see the park succeed as an increase in attendance at SFA might also mean an increase in attendance at Fed-Ex field as well & with the shape SFA is in right now they need all the improvement they can get.[/QUOTE]

The last time I checked, the Redskins had a Season Ticket waiting list of about 40,000 names. I don't think he's concerned about increasing attendance at Fedex Field. If there is any benefit it would be to parks in which SF and NFL teams already exist. However, From my own experience it's tough to go to a football game and get out of Fedex Field in time to enjoy SFA.

I'm a little concerned about his plans for SFA. I don't like the fact he wants to put a home builder on the board of directors. Especially when the land SFA sits on could very easily fit 2-3,000 single family homes at a minimum prices $500,000 homes on it easily.

I keep saying this and for whatever reason, no one is listening. Listen, you can't judge the record of the Redskins with how Dan Snyder runs a business. You have to look at it like Dan Snyder owns Fedex Field and the Redskins lease the stadium from him. Unless you've been to Fedex Field you can't compare the two especially based on media reports that capture the guys person in two minutes or less. Fedex Field is how Dan Snyder runs a business. I'm not going to say the service is top notch but there is no shortage of employees and everyone knows what their job is and how to do it. The concessions stands have hot dogs ready, the beers keep flowing, people are standing at the escalators making sure if they stop, there started as soon as possible, souviners are stocked and everything is open when the stadium opens. Policies and procedures are in place and are followed. This ensures things run smoothly. Something that needs to be done when you have 91,000 people attending a sporting event.

Another thing I think Snyder needs to look into is getting better security for the parks...With all the fights happening at SFA, SFMM, SFOG, etc., you would think that would be one of this biggest concerns with the parks. These parks are supposed to be for families and not just teenagers, and when fights happen it totally ruins somebodys trip to the park, especially when they close the parks earlier. I think he should take the same approach that Geauga Lake did and try to put together police squads for the parks that have been having these kinds of problems.

That's one thing I will agree on. More parks and not just SF parks should be adding extra security. Increasingly as time goes on, more teens are acting either like idiots or thugs. So if anybody else including Snyder take over, I would hope that would be one change made at SF parks and would like to see at other parks as well.

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I want to go to John's Park.

Well just think, if he sells some parks, there would be more money to invest in things like personal police squads for some of the parks. Keep in mind though, some of the parks like SFMW never have any problems like you would see at SFMM or SFA. If Snyder can pinpoint which parks have problems with violence, they can higher squads for those parks and those parks only. It's these kind of changes I'm hoping Snyder can make if he takes over...That and adding more benches to parks like SFMM and overall cleaning up the park and their staff. I really liked how Geauga Lake evaluated all of it's staff before opening to the public back in 2004.

The question no one has addressed is: who is going to buy these parks?
My synopsis (feel free to disagree/agree, etc.)

Cedar Fair: Not likely. They got burned on Geauga Lake (an underperforming SF park), and although they have only owned it two seasons, they may have realized "hey, we really can't turn around these parks very quickly." In sum, they may buy one or two, but surely not the whole lot that may go up for sale.

Paramount: I guess this is a possiblity. I don't see it happening though.

Busch Gardens: Again, this is a possiblity. But they only own a few parks, and I doubt they're looking to more than double their theme park interests.

It comes down to this, in my opinon. If Six Flags' is under the control of Snyder, underperforming parks (and therefore, undesirable parks) will go up for sale. Because there is no [url="#"]amusement park[/url] company as large as Six Flags (CF being the closest), if they even manage to sell these parks, they will be sold at a loss to Six Flags. This will not help Six Flags except in the short term. Chances are, if Snyder is determined to sell SF properties, he may not get the asking price because there won't be adequate buyers. This could lead to park closures. And we, the enthusiasts and GP, lose. This is why I am rooting for Snyder to fail in his takeover bid.

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Why don't you just go to forbes.com, do a little research on the man, then judge for yourselves. The man knows how to run a business.

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Yea I have a problem seeing someone buying the lower ranking parks. I can see small independant companies buying one park and trying to make a profit from it, like an entrepreneur would. And BTW Thunderhawk, I asked that question on the first page.

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I'm going to be in a movie one day about all the people who enjoy riding T2. The movie will be called The Fantastic Four.

^Yes, I know you did. No one answered it though, so I was bringing that to the foreground again. And whipster, I keep hearing people say "The man knows how to run a business." Not all businesses are the same; apples and oranges, people.

I just don't like the idea of Snyder selling off/closing parks and selling off "unused land". This unused land surrounding parks is expansion space. People kvetch about Six Flags not building new stuff at their SF park, but now they're supporting the idea of selling expansion land inherently by supporting Snyder. Where will they build if they sell the unused land? (There is rarely a good reason to take down an older coaster, imo).

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[QUOTE=Thunderhawk]Cedar Fair: Not likely. They got burned on Geauga Lake (an underperforming SF park), and although they have only owned it two seasons, they may have realized "hey, we really can't turn around these parks very quickly." In sum, they may buy one or two, but surely not the whole lot that may go up for sale.[/QUOTE]

First of all, Cedar Fair didn't get "burned" when they bought Geauga Lake...The chain knows that the park has potential. If they didn't think the park had potential they wouldn't have purchased the park in the first place, let alone spend 26 million dollars on it to totally revamp the old SeaWorld side of the park. I'm sure the chain understands that taking the animals out was a big blow for the park, but Cedar Fair doesn't do animals, why would they want to run animals if they haven't done it at any of their other parks. Like the saying says, Rome wasn't built in a day...It's going to take a few seasons and some new attractions to get the GP to really get used to the park and say "Hey, this park is actually pretty good even without the animals". I think the GP are a little hard headed and aren't giving the park a chance to show how much improvement it's made since Six Flags has taken over.

I really don't think Cedar Fair would purchase any of the parks unless they absolutely knew that it had potential to be at the same level as some of the other parks smaller parks like Valleyfair and WoF. I really think the only way they'd actually buy any of the parks is if there was absolutely no competition like at SFStL or SFNO...Theres actually a few parks like this in the Six Flags chain and I really think Cedar Fair could turn some of them around if they wanted to. It's just a matter of, does the chain need/want anymore parks after acquiring Geauga Lake?

As for some other possible buyers, keep in mind that there are other people that buy parks besides the big names in the business. I mean, we didn't know who the Six Flags Euro parks were getting bought buy, heck we didn't even know what Star Parks was, I mean after buying some of the parks Six Flags sold, they basically started their own theme park chain out of nowhere. Really, I wouldn't be surprised if some other NFL owners bought the parks near their teams city. Just think, the Rams could own SFStL, the Saints could own SFNO, the Broncos could own Elich Gardens, heck it's only a few minutes away from their stadium, and the list continues to go on. We might even see some NBA owners step forward and buy a few parks. Really, the amusement industry is booming, and any person would be stupid to pass up the oppurtunity to take over their own amusement park. If I was a trust fund baby and had a ton of money thanks to my parents, I would probably buy an amusement park over a professional sports team any day, unless of course I had the option of buying the Steelers. :p

First off.

if you haven't read this official [url="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/701374/000091412105001562/0000914121-05-001562.txt"]SEC document[/url] from Synder. You need to. It is very informational.

Synder owns more stock 11 some odd percent than anybody else. over 50 Million Dollars worth. he is not trying to merge the Redskins and Six Flags together, he is just trying to protect and maintain his investment.

don't try to confuse the two.

the reason the stock soared is because he made an offer to buy 28% or so more of the stock at $6.50 a share. so if people bough a buch of shares at 5.50 they would be making a nearly automatic $1 a share profit once it came time to sell.

Also Snyder never says that he wants to sell parks. He said he want to sell a buch of unused land that he says the company has tons of. So we should quash the park selling rumors.

One thing he did say was that building huge roller coasters is part of Six Flags recent problems and is why they haven't met expectations. So if Snyder does take over Six Flags, I wouldn't see him in vesting in any record breakers anytime soon.

I wouldn't call someone stupid for passing it up. If they're not interested in it or don't have the knowledge, there's point for them to do it. There is still a major risk involved in buying a park and I can understand why someone would pass on the oppertunity. Although like you, I would love to have my own amusement park if I had the money. I'd rather start my own though from scratch so I could build it as I wanted and had more freedom on the direction of my park.


[QUOTE=whipster56]Why don't you just go to forbes.com, do a little research on the man, then judge for yourselves. The man knows how to run a business.[/QUOTE]

What does that prove? Geez, why is it so hard for some people to understand? Being good at one doesn't mean you will be at another. If he's so smart as everyone seems to think, then why did he buy stock from a company if he would be unhappy with it and didn't like the direction they were going? That seems pretty stupid to me.

And to further prove my point, look at Vince McMahon of the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). Say what you will about [I]pro wrestling[/I], but he is a great businessman. He turned the WWWF (as it was known a long time ago before WWF and eventually the WWE as it's known now) into a billion dollar company. This was with numerous other companies during the early eighties to compete with and the once very successful WCW in the ninties. Flash forward another decade and the WWF has successfully bought the WCW along with ECW.

Since this thread has a lot to do with football, I'll mention that the successful Vince McMahon along with the usually very successful NBC decided to try their hand at their own form of football. You might remember the XFL. Yep, that disaster aired on Saturday nights to horrible ratings after what actually had high ratings for the first couple weeks. So as successful as McMahon is at wrestling, he and Dick Ebsersol of NBC bombed very badly.

So just like Vince knows wrestling, Snyder might know football but as McMahon couldn't carry that success over to football, who knows if snyder can carry that over to the amusement park industry. And what Vince did or tried to do anyway was closer to what he knew than what Snyder would try to do. And Vince had some great support in NBC also.

I just don't see why everyone thinks he's the answer. He would be entering a field I doubt he has much knowledge in. How many time has Snyder personally dealt with Intamin, B&M, Vekoma, Huss, Gravity Group, S&S, etc??? Does anyone here know ifs even been to SFA much less any other SF parks? You want someone who has little experience to come in and possibly set the company back while he's learning the ropes? SF is turning around, why can't people grasp that?

Why does anyone think he can bring that success to Six Flags? People keep bringing up about the Redskins. Do you really want that experience at the park? That stuff costs money and that stuff is easy to afford when people spend hundreds of dollars for the best seats and untold amounts of money for skyboxes and what not. You think food and drinks are expensive at amusement parks, check out prices at the games. Lets not forget about parking. $5-10 at an amusement park, maybe $20 or more at a game. Snyder isn't going to make changes likee many of you are hoping for because there won't be the money for it. And don't think he's going to be dipping into his own pockets to buy new rides and make all those changes.

Last, it's probably not going to happen. He's looking to add more stock but he's nowhere near having a majority of the stock anyway.

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I want to go to John's Park.

Why does everyone keep forgeting this guy was a millionaire before the majority of you stopped drinking from a bottle? He had a life before the Redskins. He started his own marketing company and sold it, making millions in the process. He's recruited people like Fedex's Fred Smith to be part owners of the Redskins. They just didn't jump on board because he had a drink with them. He had a vision and they liked what they heard. The same thing with the Mike Shapiro from ESPN and the head of NVR. He's already begun putting th pieces together to form management group. Mike Shapiro has already said, if he becomes President of Red Zone, he will visit 30 parks in 30 days. Something tells me these parks are looking for old dust pans and brooms and looking to clean up before he arrives. Your going to see changes at SF by April of next season, be it with Snyder or Burke. Burke's but is on the line, if SF has one failing quarter in the next year, he's going to be gone.