A few months ago, we looked at and discussed the rocky future Six Flags had with new leadership coming in and stirring up turmoil company-wide. Since then, there have been massive rumors circulating regarding the future of Six Flags. There was, at one point, talk about Six Flags selling off all their real estate to a real estate trust company while they kept operating the parks. Ultimately, this was pure speculation and rumors that never occurred.
However, massive news just dropped in the theme park community regarding Six Flags and its competitor Cedar Fair. Under a new massive $8B deal, the two companies will merge to become one massive joint company. The combined company, which will operate under the name Six Flags, will boast 27 amusement parks, 15 water parks and nine resort properties in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
As the deal was announced early morning on Thursday, November 2nd, Cedar Fair CEO Richard Zimmerman gave the following remarks:
“Our merger with Six Flags will bring together two of North America’s iconic amusement park companies to establish a highly diversified footprint and a more robust operating model to enhance park offerings and performance”.
Under the new leadership structure, Zimmerman will be president and CEO of the combined company. Meanwhile, Selim Bassoul, President and CEO of Six Flags, will become executive chairman.
While I am personally very skeptical about Selim Bassoul and the Six Flags leadership, I am very glad that Cedar Fair is taking control of the leadership while Six Flags is the brand and providing support to Cedar Fair.
When you compare the two companies, Cedar Fair is the better and stronger company out of the two. Cedar Fair focuses a lot more on quality compared to Six Flags where the emphasis is on quantity. I think Cedar Fair could definitely improve the Six Flags parks by a lot, with their higher standards, attention to detail, heavy theming and minimalist in park advertising approach.
One major benefit that would come with this merger, is both operators will have access to each other’s intellectual property brands such as DC Comics, Looney Tunes and Peanuts. One thing Cedar Fair lacks is themed attractions centered around a character or movie. By having access to the DC brand, it would allow Cedar Fair to step up and compete on a themed attraction level with the Marvel superhero rides at Disneyland and Universal Studios Orlando.
On the flip side, Six Flags struggles (in my opinion at least) with theming and creating attractions for children and a younger audience. Cedar Fair has the Peanuts brand and with it, they do a very good job creating some unique and well organized kids areas. I feel like Six Flags often overlooks or forgets about these kinds of areas/lands so with Cedar Fair bringing this to the table, it would be a huge win for Six Flags.
There is a huge push and hope from the theme park fan community that the newly formed company will create a new season pass program that would allow pass holders to access all 27 parks across the portfolio. I think this would be a smart idea since it would allow guests to experience the best that both operators have to offer. For example one could enjoy Cedar Fair’s top parks in Southern California (Knott’s), Ohio (Cedar Point and Kings Island) and also enjoy Six Flags’ top parks in Los Angeles (Magic Mountain), Chicago (Great America) and New Jersey (Great Adventure).
As it stands now, Cedar Fair-Six Flags will only have two overlapping areas in both combined portfolios in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. This overlap will not remain for long however, as Cedar Fair has sold California’s Great America and the park will cease operating within a few years. After this, it would only have Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in the Bay Area market.
When asked about if there would be any potential closures or sales to any of the joint parks, Cedar Fair CEO Richard Zimmerman said on a call with investors that there are no plans to close any of the parks following the merger.
“These are irreplaceable assets. How do you grow if you shrink your portfolio?”
There are still so many questions and details to work out with this merger. I think only time will tell how well this merger goes for both operators and what will become of it. Keep in mind this was only announced on Thursday, November 2nd so there is not much additional information available. It is definitely going to be interesting to watch this merger further progress and unfold.
So, what do you think of this insane merger? Let us know in the comments below and be on the lookout for more YouTube videos and blog content coming your way soon!
Could Six Flags be heading for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection once again? If you’re a theme park enthusiast or frequent Six Flags goer, you may have noticed Six Flags all over the media lately but for all the wrong reasons. We’ve been seeing more and more reactions to the latest updates from SF and as someone that’s into theme parks, I couldn’t help notice either. If you aren’t familiar with the latest, allow me to summarize.
All Rise! The New CEO Is Here
As Six Flags was heading into the end of its 2019 season and gearing up for 2020, the world was thrown into chaos as Covid-19 hit. Like its competitors, it was forced to close its parks for the foreseeable future. What looked like a slam dunk operating season where it appeared the company was bouncing back after struggling again, turned into a brutal nightmare.
Mike Spanos
Selim Bassoul
It was around this time that the company named Mike Spanos as CEO. Now here’s where it gets interesting. Mike only served as CEO during the pandemic and afterwards, it was announced the company was naming a new CEO, Selim Bassoul. While I understand there may have been many circumstances and factors behind the decision, I’ve seen many other content creators discuss him and say that he honestly wasn’t given a shot and allowed to shine since he had his hands pretty much tied during the pandemic. I honestly agree with the community here. I think the company should have given Mike a chance since most of the time he was in charge all the parks were closed.
In order for you to understand the snowball effect that is happening, let’s discuss Selim a little more here.
Selim Bassoul – The Very Blunt Cheapskate
One beef I have always had with Six Flags was the quality and consistency across the brand. The chain has always had a budget or a store brand feel to it. Unlike Cedar Fair, Busch Gardens and other top chains, Six Flags has always lagged behind in my mind. These other chain parks are always well kept (for the most part) and are always making improvements to existing areas. Six Flags on the other hand has always felt like it was hanging on by a thread. For example, if you were to enter Cedar Point and compare your experience to say Six Flags Great Adventure, the differences are night and day.
You would think with the company still struggling with its debt, it would try to take the time to make improvements and keep trying to evolve to better itself. However, this is sadly not the case which is very disappointing. Rather than this CEO making brand wide improvements and park specific fixes, he instead decides to cut membership perks, raise prices, cut thousands of jobs, take away promotions/discounts, and flat out states the company will not build any new rides!
“Raising prices is no easy task for a company that has trained customers to expect discounts, and in 2022, we have shocked the system with a significant increase in ticket prices.”
Selim Bassoul
It boggles my mind how a theme park brand can just raise prices sharply and not increase offerings and value. What the heck is wrong with this guy?!?! I get that the economy is out of whack and inflation, supply chains and labor shortages are all problems. So I get there is a need to cut costs and restructure a bit. But honestly how can you just keep cutting and cutting, raise prices, not offer anything new (ride wise) then expect a miracle.
“We are continuing to execute our premiumization strategy by focusing on guests who are willing to pay more for a premium experience”
Selim Bassoul
Is this guy friends with Bob Iger and Bob Chapek from Disney? Maybe they are related somehow because their methods are very very similar!
On The Flip Side
Now to be fair, there are a few things this CEO did which I feel are steps in the right direction but at the same time are very bare bones. One of my biggest complaints I had when visiting the parks was the food options and the quality for the food. Previously, all the food options were all fried foods that were greasy and over priced. Recently however, one of the first major things SF retooled was their food options brand wise. They introduced more healthy options, added dietary options and took existing food options and reworked them for better taste, flavor and quality. Additionally, they also added a lot of events and festivals in the parks throughout the year. I do really like some of these events being that beforehand the parks didn’t have many festivals or events. Personally, I think it adds more flare and excitement to the parks when you visit instead of the same old thing every time.
#StepdownSelim
When you have an entire Reddit thread titled after you with the words “#Fire” or “#Stepdown” in front of it, chances are you are either doing a very poor job and are disliked. Boy is that the case with this CEO. The original post is too long to take an image of, I will quote it below:
Step Down Selim: Another Open Letter
I’m obviously posting this anonymously because Selim has the tendency to fire anyone and everyone, going as far as to fire a 16 year old at a park simply because he asked them how they were and the 16 y/o responded “Well, I’m alive.”
When Selim first took over the company, I was nervous, but hopeful that Mike Spanos’ rehabilitation of the parks would be continued. It has become increasingly evident that this is not the case. Throughout my tenure here at Six Flags, I’ve seen our operations generally neglected, ESPECIALLY food service, which is shambles. It has only gotten worse.
Selim is new to the theme park business. I don’t even think he visited theme parks prior to taking the helm of our company, due to his fear of roller coasters. What made the Board so excited to have him become our CEO, I don’t know, because there’s nothing worse for a company than installing a CEO who genuinely doesn’t understand a company and it’s product, which I’ve said before many times.
I wouldn’t share these sentiments if it wasn’t for the way he came in swinging, swiping, cutting, all while blind. Selim’s goal has been to increase our prices to be on par with Universal Studios and Disney and generate their numbers in revenue
We are not those parks, we never have been.
And the guests know that.
You’ve essentially gone and cut spending and budgets so that the parks rehab projects aren’t being completed, causing many parts of the park to follow into disrepair and generally look unmaintained, and then you raise ticket prices, take out our successful membership program, raise food prices, and take out our very successful dining pass program.
For what?!
We are the park that middle class families go to when they have a good report card.
We are the park that you drop your kids off to go spend time at while you run errands.
We are the park that you visit to hang out with your friends and have a good time without breaking the bank.
We are the park that families chose because of our value.
They could get past the way the park looked because they knew that we weren’t the best parks in the world. We were just a reliable park that they could make memories at because our rides and the ambiance.
Now our customers are turning away to Cedar Fair and other theme parks.
Post-pandemic and we’re suffering with incredibly low staffing, causing rides/food service locations to be closed AND even more neglect to the park, so we have less to offer than before and the park in general looks shitty and you’re charging Disneyland and Universal Studios prices… for this??? It’s embarrassing.
The guests pay to enter, then they pay to sit (specifically at Harbor), they stand in 1hr+ lines and pay outrageous prices for food that’s on par with McDonalds, and then they stand in lines for rides that take just as long because other rides are closed.
Food service locations that are overrun by rodents with no A/C, 15 y/o+ equipment, minimal staffing, terrible wages, and it all looks disgusting. Guests can see it.
These guests are getting their pockets ravaged. They’re getting nickeled and dimed. And they know that, and they’re not coming back. They haven’t been coming back.
And Selim pretends to be delusional because he projects that the park is doing better than before.
This isn’t better Selim. It’s not.
Otherwise we wouldn’t have had to lay off 24 tenured, experienced Full-times at Magic Mountain.
You know that just as well as every person in these parks do, whether they’re a Team Member, Lead, Supervisor, Assistant Manager, Full-time, even guests.
He boasted that we’re overspending as soon as he took over while in the same breath stating that he doesn’t read reports that detail our spending. Does he know what we’re spending on? No.
On every level, management included, us employees feel that he’s running this company into the ground to bankrupt it and sell off portions of it and run away back to his mansion with a check to retire on.
We’re just scared to call this to attention because he continues to cut jobs of the outspoken and introduce his own staff from Middleby, the company who oversaw prior to us, including his daughter. Talk about Nepotism at it’s best.
The timing couldn’t be better though, because I’ve called the UFCW to get information on unionizing. Hope they’re prepared for that.
Investors, you have the power to demand his removal. I know we’re capable of providing incredible earnings and delivering on your investments. I know we can. Sell every last share and demand that the board remove this embarrassment of a CEO before it’s too late.
He’s a virus to this company and he needs to be eradicated.
#StepdownSelim
The following is yet another open letter by an anonymous employee/shareholder also using the same two hashtags. This was the other viral Reddit post that many content creators are taking note on and commenting on:
Step Down Selim
An Open Letter to the Six Flags Board of Directors and Investors
The sentiments shared in this letter are shared by most if not all of the Six Flags Team Members and many of our guests.
You ousted Mike Spanos and named Selim Bassoul CEO of our company in November 2021 after we had a great year. Selim addressed all of us in a virtual Town Hall shortly after and told us why he felt the change was necessary. He stated that spending was out of control. We know he didn’t take the time to learn why and where the money was being spent. He complained about a 300+ page report that was submitted to the board and told us he doesn’t read reports. Did any of you read the report? While we don’t know, specifically, what was in the report, we can tell you where the money was being spent. It was being spent on rehab and repair of our infrastructure that has been neglected for many, MANY years! Would any of you allow your homes to fall into such disrepair? I doubt it.
Selim had a lot to say in a later virtual town hall with all the parks. He made some good points which all of us agreed with, but much of what he went on about was absolutely ridiculous and laughable. He would have heard everyone at every park laughing AT him had the parks not been muted. He went on at length about guests wanting 2-ply toilet paper. He spent a great deal of time complaining about guests dumping ice from their cups in the bushes. He rambled a lot about wanting various things that aren’t going to generate revenue, only decrease it.
There was plenty to like about the ideas and thoughts Selim shared with us, including his past successes as a business person. Who wouldn’t like the bonus program he implemented at a previous company that increased the bonus potential for every employee every year until the bonus reached $10,000? All of us could certainly get on board with that. There’s only one problem. We’ll never achieve the goals necessary to qualify for the bonus due to Selim’s leadership or lack thereof.
Selim made it clear that he realizes he has a lot to learn and would rely on those of us who have lots of experience in the business to teach him, but he’s only done the opposite. He eliminated layers of team members, including Bonnie Weber who is one of the best in the business, and now has all the Park Presidents reporting directly to him. It didn’t take long for the Park Presidents to realize they’re better off not offering ideas or thoughts to him. Why? He fires them, yet he can’t seem to understand why nobody offers suggestions anymore.
We had a great 2021 season yet Selim felt it was necessary to freeze wages in 2022 after we went for 2 years without wage increases due to COVID. Nobody complained about the 2-year freeze because it was understandable. It’s not acceptable, however, to freeze wages after we had a great return and then expect everyone to rely on a generous bonus every year. While a large bonus every year would be great, our next CEO might not like that method of compensation and eliminate it. Will our salaries be adjusted at that point or will our compensation remain several years behind? We all know the answer to that. Thankfully, he backed down and gave most hourly employees a 75 cent/hour increase after quite a bit of pushback. He still left salaried employees without.
Morale is at an all-time low at Six Flags. We’ve lost a lot of great people to reductions in workforce and other great, skilled team members are preparing to leave because they aren’t happy working for Six Flags anymore and they can’t afford to continue working for Six Flags. They have families to support, but it’s become increasingly difficult to do so given the current state of the economy.
The performance of Six Flags will continue to plummet, as will the stock price, as we continue to lose such skilled, experienced labor. We can’t hire enough people to run all of our attractions and retail locations. It’s become increasingly difficult to hire skilled labor to maintain our infrastructure and rides. We’re just hiring bodies at this point to fill the positions, and that’s not good. A high percentage of the people we’re hiring aren’t able to perform well, but we don’t have a choice. It’s severely impacting the service we offer our guests.
What is the #1 thing people come to Six Flags for? They come for our rides in case you didn’t know. We can’t hire enough people to run all our rides, let alone maintain and inspect them. We’re losing valuable labor there, too. More are preparing to leave. Some of the people inspecting the rides are certainly trained and qualified, but don’t necessarily have enough experience to adequately perform a thorough inspection. That’s scary. Safety is going to suffer and there’s nothing worse for an amusement park than an accident. We hope it doesn’t happen, but it probably will.
Selim expressed that he wants Six Flags to be considered a premium product like Disney and Universal. That simply isn’t going to happen under Selim’s leadership. We’re charging our guests more and offering far less. Our attendance has been abysmal and many of our guests won’t be returning. The proof is on social media. People aren’t happy with the product and service we’re offering and our attendance proves it. Cedar Fair is doing quite well this year, so you can’t blame the economy.
Selim released a rather dumb video to us with him saying, “Have no fear!” numerous times throughout. Unfortunately, we have plenty to fear as long as he remains in charge. He wants us to do more with less as he said in the virtual town hall. He also expects guests to pay more and get less. We all want Six Flags to succeed, but it won’t while Selim is CEO unless he changes his ways.
Selim is the laughing stock of the entire company. None of us have an ounce of respect for him, but we certainly fear him. He reminds us a lot of Mark Shapiro in both his energetic style of speaking and his leadership style. It makes us wonder if we’re heading down the same road.
It is up to you, the board, to fix this. There will be consequences if you fail to do so. Our stock price is already 40% lower than it was a year ago. Stay on course if the goal is to drive us into the ground.
Investors, we ask you to hold the board accountable and demand a change in leadership. Cut your losses and sell every share in Six Flags if they fail to do so. We are capable of providing you with an excellent ROI, but not while Selim is in charge.
#StepDownSelim
The Future of Six Flags
What does the future like for Six Flags? Honestly, only time will tell. One thing to keep in mind is the numbers and reports don’t lie. Anyone can clearly see because of the poor decisions being made, attendance, revenue, guest satisfaction and staffing are all taking a hit.
What do you think about Six Flags and its CEO? Let us know in the comments down below.
Touristician 