An unhappy ending on horizon for theme park fans
The owner of Knott's Berry Farm has delivered a gut punch to some California theme park fans.
Cedar Fair announced late last month that it had sold the land underneath the California's Great America theme park in Santa Clara. The approximately $310 million deal includes a leaseback that will allow Cedar Fair to continue operating the Bay Area park for up to 11 years. After that, though, it's all over for California's Great America.
Eleven years might seem like a long time, but with the park now officially a lame duck, one wonders for how many of those years it will be able to draw enough fans that Cedar Fair can justify keeping it open.
No new rides equals no new visitors in the theme park business. California's Great America already was a tier-two park in the Cedar Fair chain, not getting new coasters and rides as often as larger parks in the chain, such as Knott's, Canada's Wonderland and Ohio's Cedar Point. It's tough to envision Cedar Fair ever building another major ride at California's Great America, now that its days are numbered.
The sale will allow Cedar Fair to pay off much of the debt it took on while its parks were closed during the pandemic lockdowns. So from a certain perspective, it looks as though California's Great America could be the pandemic's first major business casualty in the U.S. theme park business. Coupled with soaring real estate values in California, especially in Silicon Valley, it just didn't make business sense for Cedar Fair to keep the park.
That's no comfort to fans and employees who felt an emotional connection with California's Great America. Sure, any park in the same state as Disneyland was going to have to work especially hard to compete and win visitors. With four companies running the park during its nearly 50 years (Marriott, Kings Entertainment, Paramount and now Cedar Fair), California's Great America never could escape the catch-22 of not having enough attendance to justify bigger investments in attractions, leading to it not offering enough compelling attractions to boost its attendance.
But a home park is something special, even it isn't Disneyland. Many of us root for sports teams that will never sniff a championship. That failure doesn't make fans love those teams any less. When a team leaves its home, that can be heartbreaking for fans. But there's no heartbreak like watching your home team fold. That's basically what's happening now for people who live near California's Great America and have grown to love the park just because it is their theme park home.
As a kid, I was heartbroken when my hometown Indianapolis Racers hockey team folded. Watching former Racers such as Mark Messier and (sigh) Wayne Gretzky become stars elsewhere just salted the wound. California's Great America fans may have a few seasons left to say goodbye, but any hope that one day the park could grow and stand among the state's elite is now officially gone. As a fan, that hurt to see — whenever and wherever it happens.