NEWS: The Brash vs. the Button-Downs

[robbalvey]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/11/AR2005091100830.html?nav=rss_business/localbusiness

 

Last September, Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder phoned Six Flags Inc. chairman and chief executive Kieran E. Burke to suggest they meet and talk about ways to revive the sagging theme park company -- a project in which Snyder had a deep interest as Six Flags' largest shareholder.

 

Burke's response? He said he needed to talk to his lawyers first.

 

The incident was telling and underscored how Snyder's bid to take over Six Flags is not just a fight for control of a single company, but a contest between two business cultures -- one brash and risk-oriented, the other more staid and by-the-book.

 

It pits Snyder and two people he has recruited to the Six Flags fight, former ESPN programming executive Mark Shapiro and Washington area builder Dwight C. Schar, against a trio of Harvard Law School graduates with deep Wall Street connections -- Burke, Six Flags finance chief James F. Dannhauser and board member Stanley S. Shuman.

 

Snyder, Schar and Shapiro built businesses by selling to advertisers, television viewers or home buyers, while Burke, Dannhauser and Shuman made money in investment banking, real estate and the careful application of tax law.

 

When Snyder last month appealed directly to Six Flags' shareholders to oust Burke, Dannhauser and Shuman, the documents he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pointedly took aim at "investment bankers based in New York," and suggested they did not know how to market to Middle America.

 

"Whatever understanding of the business that the board and current management have is not being put to good use," Snyder wrote in his SEC filings, citing the company's loss of $67.7 million for the first nine months of 2004.

 

"Reading the language in some of the recent filings, it seems very personal," said James Zoltak, editor of Amusement Business, a trade industry publication.

 

Neither Snyder nor Six Flags' management would comment for this story. But letters exchanged over the past year and filed with the SEC depict a clash not just of business ambition, but of philosophy and style, a feud that seems rooted in the backgrounds of the men involved.

 

Snyder is a college dropout who built a small direct-marketing company into a billion-dollar business while still in his twenties by doing whatever worked -- handing out samples and advertising in doctors' offices, for example.

 

He applied the same approach to the Redskins, on and off the field. At times, his money-making schemes have incurred the wrath of fans and local officials. Once, for example, he tried to require season ticket holders to pay using a Redskins credit card. (The credit card company nixed the idea.) Last year, he added 5,181 seats to the Redskins' FedEx Field without getting permission from Prince George's County officials, who considered suing.

 

But other strategies have proved successful, such as inventing new varieties of premium seating and expanding concessions to encourage fans to spend more. Despite posting only one winning season under Snyder's ownership, the franchise has nearly doubled its gross revenue to $300 million.

 

Continued...

 

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[Meteornotes]

Well, I think we can all agree that the current SF management team is not the best. But I'm not sure Snyder and his gang would be any better. I think for SF to succeed, you're going to need someone at the helm that is passionate about their product, and do whatever they can to make that product highly desirable to the public. Snyder, at least with his operation of the Redskins, seems to be more about squeezing the maximum amount of money out of the fans. I'd love to know more about his plans to turn the company around...

 

dt