Bronze Tier Parks
Ultimately, Six Flags doesn’t have a whole lot to gain from unilaterally closing or selling off its parks. Especially given that smaller parks often go years or even decades without any sizable, expensive additions, it seems far more likely that Six Flags would simply continue to operate even small parks as opposed to letting a potential competitor get their hands on them.
However, if a park consistently underperforms or serves as a “brand withdrawal” for the company, part of Six Flags’ evaluation would almost certainly begin to weigh other variables. For example, if the park wouldn’t compete with any other Six Flags parks, could it be sold to another operator for a one-time buy-out? Could the land that the park is on be valuable in a sale? Does the park have any rides that could be relocated to other parks in the chain?
- SIX FLAGS AMERICA (Upper Marlboro, Maryland) – Not to be confused with Six Flags New England (which is also in New England) or Six Flags Great America, Six Flags America (so-named for its proximity to Washington, D.C.) is definitely a lower-tier Six Flags parks and has an unfortunate reputation for horrible operations and several high profile safety incidents among guests. Its two newest coasters opened in 2012 and 2014, and both are relocated rides from other parks. If you were the leader of the new Six Flags, you’d likely look at this park and see just one ride worth salvaging (Superman: Ride of Steel – a mirror-imaged sister of Darien Lake’s Ride of Steel), which is a sad state.
- SIX FLAGS ST. LOUIS (St. Louis, Missouri) – People often associate Six Flags with parks that are packed with record-breaking rides. But actually, the median Six Flags is probably a whole lot more like Six Flags St. Louis – a park with ten coasters, but… not really any stand-outs. Aside from a new kiddie coaster in 2023, the park’s most recent addition was a Vekoma Boomerang that’s actually a 1989 build relocated from Over Texas. You could maybe say that the American Thunder GCI woodie or the Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast launch coaster from 1998 are at least interesting, but neither seems worth relocating. Now that Six Flags controls both of the state’s major parks (this one and Worlds of Fun, just over three hours away), will they have a desire to invest in both? We’ll see…
- MICHIGAN’S ADVENTURE (Muskegon, Michigan) – Michigan’s Adventure was certainly the “red-headed stepchild” of the Cedar Fair chain, and now finds itself toward the low end of Six Flags’ even bigger portfolio. Really putting the “local” in “local’s park,” Michigan’s Adventure isn’t even fed by the respectable 630,000 population of Detroit, but by the 35,000 person town of Muskegon. Like many of the smaller, local parks in this tier, it’s really the attached waterpark that drives season pass sales and entices locals out throughout the summer season.
Aside from a new kiddie coasters in 2023, its last addition was 2008’s Thunderhawk – a low-rent Vekoma SLC relocated from Geauga Lake. Before that, it was a 1999 Mad Mouse, and 1998’s Shivering Timbers woodie – the latter of which is still probably the park’s signature ride. If ever Six Flags directs that they need to slim down their park count, Michigan’s Adventure would likely top the list of parks to go… Since it really offers no competition and has little worth relocating, we’d like to think the company would sell the park, not close it. After all, Michigan’s Adventure feels like the kind of park that the city or county could own and lease back to an operator.
- SIX FLAGS GREAT ESCAPE (Queensbury, New York) – Located in upstate New York, The Great Escape has long held an unusual relationship with Six Flags. Opened as a “storybook forest” style park in 1954 (before Disneyland!), the park was one of many bought by Premier Parks in the ’90s – just before Premier itself bought Six Flags and retroactively added the Six Flags name to all of its parks… well, except The Great Escape.
Probably sensing that this small, woodsy, family park in remote forested New York was something different, the park was uniquely branded as “The Great Escape: A Six Flags Park” and largely left alone. In 2023, the park was officially redubbed “Six Flags Great Escape,” but even that left the “Six Flags” as a tiny modifier in the logo. More of a beloved family treasure than a thrill park, the Great Escape welcomed its sixth coaster in 2024: Bobcat. It’s a sweet enough park, but one that – like Michigan’s Adventure – Six Flags could easily sweep off of its plate by selling it to a family or municipality.
- FRONTIER CITY (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) – The third of three legacy Six Flags parks that neither feel like nor are traditionally branded like the standard “Six Flags” (alongside La Ronde and The Great Escape), Oklahoma’s Frontier City is living history. Really. The park opened in 1958 (again, right after Disneyland) as a side trip for mid-century families tackling the great American road trip of Route 66. At that time, Frontier City really was a living history attraction, recreating a Western boomtown with four square blocks of explorable historic recreations – saloons, banks, a hotel, train ride, stagecoaches, staged gun fights, and more.
Like Darien Lake, Six Flags sold off Frontier City in an attempt to right-size the bloated and debt-ridden company in 2006. And like Darien Lake, they returned to Frontier City as an operator (not owner) in 2018. As you’d expect, Frontier City is a very modest park with just five coasters (the largest of which is a single-loop Schwarzkopf called Silver Bullet). Depending on what the company is paid to operate the park (and the length of their operating lease), it’s easy to imagine a park like Frontier City as one Six Flags could easily cut ties with (again) to help right-size its portfolio (again)… but if they’re paid handsomely by the park’s owner to do all the hard work (staffing, scheduling, maintenance, etc.) and don’t have to invest much in new rides, maybe they’ll find the park worth keeping.
- CALIFORNIA’S GREAT AMERICA (San Jose, California) – If the image above looks familiar, it’s because the entrance to this park looks a whole lot like another – just with fountains and palm trees. Yep, California’s Great America was split off from its Chicago sister in the ’80s, sending it on a very different trajectory. The result is that this Bay Area park features the same entry, park icon, and general layout as the Six Flags-branded park, but spent forty years as a sister to Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Carowinds, and Canada’s Wonderland instead – including more than a decade as Paramount’s Great America.
Located in Silicon Valley – one of the most expensive real estate markets on Earth – the park’s future has long been in flux, especially because it shares a parking lot with the San Francisco Giants stadium (and thus, is closed on home game days). To make matters worse, even though Cedar Fair owned the park, they didn’t own the land it was sitting on, leaving its future permanently uncertain.
That changed in 2019 when Cedar Fair bought the real estate under the park for $150 million (a huge investment in an industry where a new signature coaster can cost $25 million or so). The land purchase seemed like a guarantee that the park would indeed survive! … But just three years later, a post-pandemic Cedar Fair turned around and sold the land to a developer for $310 million (a $160 million profit). Just like that, the clock began ticking on a six year lease that ends in 2028. (An optional five year extension could see the park survive as long as 2033.)
The new Six Flags has already announced that 2025 will see the park’s operating calendar shortened, dropping the autumn Tricks and Treats event and the annual Winterfest – part of an intentional wind-down of the park’s expenses. Unless a deus ex machina occurs, this park will close forever. That’ll leave its top rides – like the RailBlazer single-rail RMC, Flight Deck B&M invert, classic looping Demon (with a copy in Chicago) and Gold Striker GCI woodie – to be redistributed among the Six Flags chain… and for that, fans have some ideas for where they’ll go.
What do you think about Six Flags’ now-supercharged park portfolio? Will the company really continue to operate 27 amusement parks across the continent? What factors do you think they’re considering in their internal audit of the gargantuan collection of coasters they now hold? And with Cedar Fair’s leadership technically in charge of the new chain, what changes do you hope we’ll see across the Six Flags parks? Let us know in the comments below!