The News
Can the attention economy fix Six Flags? Jana Partners’s team-up with NFL star and very famous fiancé Travis Kelce is a bet that celebrity can succeed where traditional market pressures have failed.
Over the past year, several activist investors have nudged the theme-park operator toward incremental changes, including a new CEO and board changes. But they’ve failed to turn around a stock that has lost nearly 60% since the company merged with Cedar Fair in 2024, or get the company to put itself up for sale. Weather has been uncooperative this year, too.
Investors see opportunity in Six Flag’s real estate — a classic sale-leaseback play or even a shutter-and-sale for more lucrative uses. (AI datacenters, anybody?)
In this article:
Rohan’s view
Celebrity endorsements haven’t always swayed Wall Street, and after an initial 20% bump on the news, Six Flags shares have slipped 7%. Starboard brought Shaquille O’Neal onto Papa Johns’ board in 2019 — “everyone knows Shaquille O’Neal, they know that I’m in the fun business,” the star said — but he stepped down last year and the company’s stock fell by 60% from highs.
But 2025’s attention economy supercharges celebrity — look at Sydney Sweeney’s viral American Eagle ad campaign — and Kelce is a cultural force right now. If anyone can convert attention-economy mania into an actual investing thesis and outcome, it might just be him.
Jana brought backup anyway, enlisting the former Gap CEO and a seasoned tech executive who bring credibility, should they need to push for further board refreshment.
The View From Land & Buildings
Jonathan Litt’s fund has been pushing Six Flags to spin its thousands of acres of real-estate into a tax-advantaged trust for years now, to little avail. It values Six Flags’ real estate at around $5.7 billion.
“Today, with the company’s valuation near all-time lows, we see an even more compelling re-rating opportunity from separating the real estate, with over 75% immediate upside,” the activist wrote in a public letter.