NFL Owner Has Game Plan to Tackle Six Flags

The owner of the NFL’s Washington Redskins launched a blitz Wednesday to sack the management of the Six Flags theme parks, teaming up with one of TV’s hottest sports programmers to do it.

Daniel Snyder revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that he had drafted Mark Shapiro, a top executive at Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, to help wrest control of Six Flags and sweep out its senior executives.

Snyder’s Red Zone investment vehicle already is Six Flags’ largest shareholder with 11.7%. In his filing, Snyder said he was offering $6.50 a share, or about $140 million, to raise his stake to nearly 35% in an effort to gain the clout he needed.

Six Flags owns or operates 30 parks, including Six Flags Magic Mountain and Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water park in Valencia. Its profit and stock price have sagged in recent years as the company struggled with soft attendance and rising debt stemming from acquisitions.

“Six Flags has been underperforming for several years and that has made it vulnerable to this kind of bid,” said Ron Bension, a former theme park chief for Universal Studios.

Losing Shapiro, 35, is considered a blow to ESPN. As executive vice president of programming and production, Shapiro was responsible for developing shows for all ESPN channels.

He is credited with helping ESPN expand its offerings with such entertainment shows as “Pardon the Interruption,” the film “The Junction Boys” and the controversial but popular football series “Playmakers.” He leaves Oct. 1.

“Mark has made many significant contributions to ESPN’s growth during his 12-year tenure, and we have benefited greatly from his talent and creativity,” ESPN President George Bodenheimer said in a statement. “With Mark’s help, we have infused our management team with pushing creative boundaries and taking smart risks.”

Snyder, 40, was a little-known businessman outside of Maryland in 1999 when he bought the Washington Redskins and the team’s stadium for an eye-popping $800 million. Since then, Snyder has frequently been the target of barbs for splurging on players and coaches with lackluster results.

Snyder is seeking three of Six Flags’ seven board seats, and is proposing to be named chairman. Under Snyder’s plan, Shapiro and Dwight Schar, chairman of home builder NVR Inc., would be named directors, with Shapiro becoming Six Flags’ chief executive.

To get his seats, Snyder wants to oust three directors: Chairman and Chief Executive Kiernan Burke, Chief Financial Officer James Dannhauser and director Stanley Shuman of Allen & Co. Snyder’s filing said that Six Flags’ executives had been unresponsive to his suggestions to boost attendance and capitalize on “excess real estate holdings.”

“We believe that much can be done to increase stockholder value and that it is time for immediate change at both board and management levels,” Snyder’s filing said.

Oklahoma City-based Six Flags responded that its board “will carefully consider and evaluate Red Zone’s filings and will communicate with Six Flags’ stockholders in due course.”

Shares of Six Flags, which rose 4 cents to $5.49 in regular trading Wednesday, shot up to $6.20 in after-hours activity following the Red Zone disclosure. In 2001, the stock traded as high as $23.25 a share.

The company’s performance was criticized last year by billionaire Bill Gates, one if its investors. The Microsoft Corp. chairman said in a filing that he was “increasingly dissatisfied” with the company’s financial performance.

Steve Baker, a former Disney executive and Orlando, Fla.-based theme park consultant, said Snyder would face a tough task in turning around Six Flags, given its heavy debt load, high costs and low margins in the theme park business.

“It’s difficult to find any synergy in owning all of those parks,” Baker said. “He’s going to have to sell off a bunch of them or he’ll be right back in the same problem with trying to grow back an unruly company.”