Travis Kelce invests in Six Flags : NPR

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce says he grew up in Six Flags parks and wants to help make them special for the next generation of families.

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Reed Hoffmann/AP

Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and fiancé of Taylor Swift, sparked jokes and hopes this week when he announced his investment in struggling amusement park company Six Flags Entertainment.

The football star, alongside two business executives, teamed up with JANA Partners to purchase a combined stake of about 9% of Six Flags’ shares, making them one of its largest shareholders, according to Tuesday’s press release.

JANA Partners is an activist investment firm, meaning it buys a substantial stake in the equity of a company in order to promote changes – both operational and managerial – that it believes will benefit that company.

“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to continue the tradition and make Cedar Point and Six Flags even more special for the next generation of families!” Kelce wrote on Instagram. “It’s so crazy to imagine it’s real, but you gotta love it when life comes full circle.”

Kelce also shared home video clips of himself as a child enjoying the rides at Cedar Point, the 364-acre amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, where he and his brother (and retired professional football player) Jason grew up every year, as the two enthusiastically recalled in an episode of their New heights podcast. Kelce, who grew up in a Cleveland suburb, describes himself as a “long-time Six Flags fan.”

Cedar Point’s former operator, Cedar Fair, merged with Six Flags in 2024 to become the largest amusement park operator in North America, with 42 parks in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

At the time, many amusement parks – and Six Flags in particular – were struggling to increase attendance in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysts and park enthusiasts hoped the merger would lower ticket costs, increase revenue and make it more competitive with industry heavyweights like Disney and Universal.

But that hasn’t been the case, says Dennis Speigel, CEO of consulting firm International Theme Park Services.

“When this merger happened, I think the due diligence was probably done a little too quickly and it had a lot of flaws,” he told NPR. “And then it was also influenced by what I call external factors: the weather, the economy, the uncertainty of what’s happening in geopolitical zones.”

Six Flags now has $5.3 billion in debt. Its CEO, Richard Zimmerman, is expected to resign by the end of the year, after announcing a net loss of $100 million for the second quarter of 2025 and combined attendance down 9% year-over-year. It will close one of its parks – Six Flags America in Bowie, Maryland – in early November and is expected to close another in Santa Clara, California, in 2027.

Speigel hopes the new shareholders will get Six Flags back on track. And while he was initially surprised to learn of Kelce’s involvement, he says it makes sense because “he’s at the zenith of his football career…and in love.”

“Having a name like that associated with Six Flags at this time, when they’ve recently gone through several years of negativity, says a lot about their future and what they’re looking to do,” he says. “Obviously, he’s a younger person. He’s aimed at teenagers, young adults and young adults with families. And that’s the Six Flags audience.”

Kelce’s fame – and his high-profile love story – have already boosted business. Swift is credited with increasing female NFL viewership and ticket sales as their relationship grew. And in recent days, her social media announcement has been flooded with requests from fans for a Swift-themed park, or at least a roller coaster.

The Six Flags Rock Ride

Six Flags opened with Six Flags Over Texas in 1961 and for years was one of America’s most iconic theme park companies (along with Disney). But over the past decade, Speigel says, it was “a ship at sea without a captain.”

“I should say [out of] of the five or six major operators over the last two years, Six Flags has suffered the most,” he says.

Six Flags has had four CEOs since 2015.

It changed its pricing strategy in 2022 to target a more affluent demographic, confusing and thereby alienating core customers. And in recent years, a number of high-profile malfunctions have left visitors stranded and even injured. This year, extreme temperatures and economic uncertainty have further reduced attendance.

“To see Six Flags fall off the cliff and get to where it is now, it’s sad,” Speigel says. “And everyone in the industry, competitors and others, are all supportive of their return.”

Visitors arrived at a “Welcome” sign at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, when it reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2021.

Jae C. Hong/AP

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Jae C. Hong/AP

What could change?

JANA Partners said in its announcement that it plans to engage with Six Flags’ management and board of directors “regarding opportunities to increase shareholder value and enhance the customer experience.”

NPR reached out to Jana Partners for more information about its goals but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

THE The Wall Street Journal reports that the investment firm wants to “modernize technology, refresh leadership and evaluate a potential sale in order to increase the company’s stock price.”

In a statement shared with NPR, a Six Flags spokesperson said it valued shareholders’ views and took their comments seriously.

Speigel believes Six Flags’ debt could force new investors to take “drastic steps,” such as selling some of its parks, either to commercial real estate companies or even private equity groups. And he emphasizes that foot traffic is essential in the industry.

“We live by repeat visits, and repeat visits are driven by capital improvements, new rides and attractions, dark rides and new technologies,” he says. “So we have to hope to see growth in that.”

Speigel says that while America’s amusement parks may not be experiencing the same growth rate as decades ago, they still attract some 400 million visitors each year — most of whom don’t care who owns a park as long as their experience is clean, fun and safe.

He hopes JANA will recognize Six Flags, and the industry in general, as “the last true bastion of family entertainment in the United States, or even the entire world, where a family can go as a total unit. And I hope they put their capital behind it and raise it from the ashes to where it is now.”