United Parks & Resorts, Inc.

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The SeaWorld park in San Antonio, Texas.

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United Parks & Resorts, Inc. (formerly SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc.) is an American company that manages several commercial theme parks operating under its marine life–focused SeaWorld and Discovery Cove brands, Busch Gardens theme parks featuring thrill rides and exotic animals, and Sesame Place, based on the Sesame Street television program. The company also operates water parks in San Diego, California; Orlando and Tampa, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; and Williamsburg, Virginia.

All the SeaWorld parks have educational displays and aquariums housing a variety of fish, invertebrates, and marine mammals, including dolphins and orcas (killer whales).

SeaWorld also sponsors educational programs for students and provides guided tours and publications. In 1976 the Orlando park initiated an animal rescue and rehabilitation program to aid injured or orphaned animals. Scientists at the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in San Diego conduct marine studies, especially research in bioacoustics and the migration and diving habits of sea turtles and pinniped mammals.

The first SeaWorld opened in San Diego in 1964. Its aquariums hold hundreds of species of fish, including sharks, and its facilities house various exotic birds. The park in Orlando features a large coral reef aquarium. In 1970, SeaWorld added its second location in Aurora, Ohio (30 miles southeast of Cleveland). Three years later, following the success of the Walt Disney World Resort , SeaWorld opened its third location, in Orlando.

Twelve years later, then-owner Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. (HBJ) opened the first SeaWorld in Texas, SeaWorld San Antonio. Covering 250 acres (101 hectares), it was the largest marine zoological park in the world. Although it initially was open year-round, the Texas theme park adopted a seasonal schedule in 1989.

In 1989, HBJ decided to sell its theme parks division, which included the four SeaWorld parks, plus two other Florida theme parks, Cypress Gardens and Boardwalk and Baseball. These two parks would be short-lived under the A-B label—Boardwalk and Baseball was quickly closed, and Cypress Gardens was sold to its current management team. As the company entered the 1990s, the combined company consisted of:

In 2000, the company opened Discovery Cove, an interactive animal park adjacent to SeaWorld Orlando, featuring a swim-with-the-dolphins experience as well as a free-flight aviary with tropical and exotic birds.

In 2008, Anheuser-Busch was sold to rival beverage maker InBev. The following year, Busch Entertainment (the catch-all name for the theme park division) was sold to private equity group Blackstone for an estimated $2.7 billion. Blackstone would launch an expansion into other media such as television and video gaming to enhance its theme park brand names, in hopes of mirroring the success of other theme park operators such as the Walt Disney Company (DIS) and Comcast’s (CMCSA) Universal Studios.

In late 2012, Blackstone announced it would take SeaWorld public, and the initial public offering was completed the following April. Shares of SeaWorld Entertainment began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SEAS.

But its early years as a publicly traded company would be marked by controversy. Until the late 2010s, each of the SeaWorld parks featured circus-like performances by trained orcas that were alternated in several daily shows and introduced to audiences as “Shamu,” a stage name that the company trademarked. In 2013 the company became the target of protests by animal-welfare organizations following the wide release of Blackfish, a documentary that chronicled SeaWorld’s mistreatment of the orca Tilikum. The animal’s abusive captivity allegedly drove it to kill three people—including Dawn Brancheau, an orca trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, in 2010.

Facing drastic declines in attendance at SeaWorld parks, the company announced that it would no longer breed orcas in captivity and that it would revamp its orca shows to emphasize the animals’ natural behaviors.

In the early 2020s, the company would resume its growth strategy and, eventually, shift away from the SeaWorld name, at least from the corporate side. In addition to several new theme park–adjacent water parks, the company would open a Sesame Place location in San Diego, and in 2023, SeaWorld would open its first location outside the United States, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. This new location boasts the world’s largest aquarium, holding 25 million liters of water and 68,000 marine animals.

In February 2024, the company changed its name from SeaWorld Entertainment to United Parks and Resorts and began trading under a new ticker symbol, PRKS.