By Mark Seavy 

With Six Flags Entertainment having recently sold seven parks and Warner Bros. Discovery’s proposed merger with Paramount Global on the horizon, big changes to licensing deals for location-based entertainment (LBE) are coming into play. 

Much of the focus will likely be on Warner Bros.’ longstanding agreements with Six Flags for DC and Looney Tunes IPs after Six Flags sold several locations to real estate investment trust EPR Properties’ Enchanted Parks business. For example, the agreement included a 323-acre location in St. Louis, MO that is home to “Bugs Bunny National Park.”  

And, as part of the same $331-million purchase, Enchanted also acquired parks in Shakopee, MN (Valleyfair) and Kansas City, MO (Worlds of Fun) that have Planet Snoopy areas that opened in 2011 under a licensing agreement with Peanuts Worldwide. 

Whether Six Flags’ licensing pacts will roll into Enchanted Parks isn’t clear. But with the investment required to open new rides and attractions, it’s likely the focus will be on transferring the licenses to new owners, licensing executives said.  

The other parks involved in the transaction also include licensing deals for rides featuring Sony Pictures Television’s Wheel of Fortune (Valleyfair) and Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (Six Flags Great Escape) brands. How these IP agreements move forward will likely hinge on how the expected merger of Warner Bros. and Paramount’s global entertainment groups is structured, according to licensing executives. 

“Six Flags needed to shear off some operations so they can focus their energy and talents on the other parks and get some of this debt paid down,” said George Wade, Founder and President of Bay Laurel Advisors. “It is going to be interesting to see how this all evolves and how Enchanted can take these parks and put them on the road to profitability, and whether their parent company has the appetite to expand.” 

Whether EPR Properties will push for further expansion will depend on Enchanted’s ability to turn around the parks.  

Prior to the acquisition, Enchanted owned the construction-themed Diggerland USA in West Berlin, NJ and Enchanted Forest Water Safari in Old Forge, NY. As of 2024, EPR itself owned 346 properties across movie theaters (53 locations, including AMC, Cineworld, and Regal), theme parks (17 locations, including five other Six Flags locations), Top Golf (36 locations) and Andretti Indoor Karting Games (7 locations).  

At the same time, Six Flags is seeking to sell two other parks, including one in Upper Marlboro, MD and another in Santa Clara, CA that is expected to close after the 2027 season. 

“The big X factor is what is the real estate value of your parks and how much can that generate by being sold,” said an LBE licensing executive. “It is a situation that remains very fluid and will likely be that way for some time.” 

Additionally, Herschend Entertainment—which owns 49 properties, including Dollywood in Tennessee—acquired 24 parks last year that were previously operated by Parques Unidos’ Palace Entertainment. That acquisition featured several parks with licensed rides and activities, including Kennywood Amusement Park in Pittsburgh, PA (Pittsburgh Steelers) and Storyland in Glen, NH (Daniel Tiger and Alice in Wonderland).  

Beyond the recent consolidation, Sesame Workshop is seeking to terminate its relationship with Seaworld, alleging millions of dollars in unpaid royalties. Sesame Workshop also alleged in a lawsuit that it wasn’t warned by Seaworld about plans to close a Sesame Place San Diego, which has long history having originally opened in 1997, filed for bankruptcy a year later before being purchased by Cedar Fair Entertainment (1999) and then Seaworld (2012). A revamped version opened in 2022 and was most recently shifted to a seasonal schedule.  

With so many changes affecting the industry, experts say strategies will have to evolve. In fact, activist investor Jana Partners wants Six Flags Entertainment to appoint a new head of its board of directors and explore a sale, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.  

“If you look at the consumer, we launched products in markets that weren’t sufficiently localized and in some markets that produced some abrupt changes as we were integrating with Cedar Fair Entertainment,” Six Flags CEO John Reilly said. “We’re evaluating how we go to market. We operate powerful regional brands, and we must deploy them with greater precision. Our guests are not identical market to market, and our marketing strategy should not be either.”