The Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday that Snyder recently sold "Junk" bonds for Dick Clark Productions, a company he owns. From the Journal (subscription required):

In August, Dick Clark Productions, which produces television shows such as "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve" sold $165 million in notes in a deal that originally was supposed to be $150 million. Of that, the company will pay $105 million to shareholders including Six Flags Inc. and private-equity firm RedZone Capital Management LLC, whose chief is Daniel Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins football team. Moody's Investors Service gave the notes a B2 "junk" rating and noted the company's reliance on three music awards shows, including the American Music Awards, plus the New Year's Eve special and the reality show "So You Think You Can Dance."

A spokesman for Snyder's DCP told the Journal that B2 was a "solid rating."

As I recall from reading studious kids' report cards, "B" meant "above average" back in high school. But I've learned it stands for something entirely different on Wall Street. Moody's guidebook says bonds with a B rating are "considered speculative and are subject to high credit risk." And B2 bonds, as the Journal says, are junk.

This isn't the first questionable deal Snyder's made with the L.A. production company. In fact, Snyder's acquisition of DCP in 2007 seemed unethical from the start, since Snyder bought DCP for $175 million by mingling funds from his private investment kitty, Red Zone, and money from shareholders of Six Flags, a public company he controlled as chairman of the board. He spent all that Six Flags money even while the company was billions of dollars in debt, and, under Snyder's hand, on the fast track to bankruptcy. Snyder's protege, Mark Shapiro, had been installed by Snyder to be both CEO of Six Flags and president of DCP.

During the bankruptcy proceedings, the DCP purchase and subsequent transactions between the theme park chain and Red Zone that Snyder hammered out while negotiating with himself were cited in a lawsuit filed by a hedge fund that lost millions.

That suit, which spelled out Snyder's conflicts of interest in a way that to the lay observer (ok, me) sure made his actions seem criminal, collapsed when a Federal judge approved a reorganization plan that threw Snyder out of the company. Shapiro was likewise tossed to the curb as soon as the new board of directors came in. 

But, from the sound of "junk," the high-profile comeuppances humbled neither of them. Then again, after Six Flags' spectacular failure, who would invest a dime with Snyder, anyway?     

There's gotta be a photo of Snyder with a shoebox-sized mobile phone to his ear out there somewhere.

Sure, the league is flying higher than ever now — TV coverage of the NFL draft drew a bigger audience than the NBA playoffs this spring. But mark down July 28, 2010 as the day everything started rolling downhill.

That's the day the reports surfaced that the NFL has brought in Dan Snyder protege/partner-in-debacles Mark Shapiro.

Yesterday, the web site Sports By Brooks told us that Shapiro "is now consulting for the league on television matters – including NFL Network games and studio shows."

Good news for the NFL: The reliability of the Sports By Brooks' report is suspect. When giving Shapiro's bio, we're told, "Shapiro is currently running Six Flags after being lured away from Bristol by Redskins Owner Dan Snyder."

Well, now....As both my readers know well, Shapiro WAS running Six Flags — until he and Snyder ran it straight into the ground. With CEO Shapiro and Chairman of the Board Snyder calling the shots, Six Flags filed for Chapter 11 more than a year ago.

When he was hired by Snyder in 2005, Shapiro said his salary would be tied to the value of Six Flags stock. He and Snyder then took Six Flags stock price from $11.93 per share down to nothingness. So during bankruptcy proceedings, Snyder and Shapiro wrote up an unbelievable golden parachute that gave Shapiro millions upon millions of dollars — one $3 million payment was labeled a "success bonus," though Shapiro and Snyder's only success in four-plus years at the helm of Six Flags came in bankrupting the company –  while stockholders lost everything.

Snyder was bounced brutally from his chairmanship during the reorganization proceedings, while Shapiro got his comeuppance from the newly installed Six Flags board shortly after the company emerged from bankruptcy.

So while, sorry Sports by Brooks, Shapiro isn't running Six Flags, he is still Snyder's partner, and is now president of Dick Clark Productions. That's the company that Snyder bought for $175 million with money from his Red Zebra investment fund, then used the cash of Six Flags stockholders to defray the purchase price by 40 percent.

Like Snyder, Shapiro was conflicted out the wazoo while Six Flags and Dick Clark hammered out deals. Shapiro was Six Flags CEO and president of Dick Clark Productions, which is also a major vendor for Six Flags, at the same time.

That arrangement's shaky enough to register on the Richter Scale, ain't it?

Six Flags isn't the only place that Shapiro showed he's got the Midas Touch...in Opposite Land! On May 9, 2008, Shapiro was elected to the board of directors of the Tribune Company. On the following Dec. 9, that corporation also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Great move, NFL!

Somebody's been reading Cheap Seats' coverage of Dan Snyder's theme park chain, Six Flags...

I heard this morning from Lance Laifer, CEO of Resilient Capital Management. That's an investment group that sunk some sum in the small seven figures into Six Flags, and doesn't want to walk away with nothing. Laifer doesn't like what he's learned about Snyder's company since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections last summer.

Yesterday, Resilient filed a motion with the bankruptcy court asking the judge to remove Snyder and the rest of the Six Flags management team and appoint a trustee to run the company while the case is settled.

Much of the filing is way over my head, with talk of PIERs and EBITDA and the like. But the meaty parts of Reslient's argument in urging that the court "replace Debtor's management" are right in my wheelhouse.

Resilient contends that the Snyder et al should be tossed out for padding their wallets and wasting Six Flags shareholders' money through transactions between Six Flags, a public company Snyder controls, and Red Zone, a private investment firm he controls. Two of Snyder's conflicted-out-the-wazoo deals — the sale of 40 percent of Dick Clark Productions from Red Zone to Six Flags, and a licensing pact with Johnny Rockets, owned by Red Zone, that pays Red Zone 5 percent of the sales of all overpriced burgers at Six Flags — were particularly heinous and damaging to Six Flags' fiscal fitness.

"These funds [used to buy Dick Clark Productions], in addition to the funds used to pay Johnny Rockets royalties and funds used to pay for Johnny Rockets restaurants inside Six Flags parks, could have been used to easily avert a bankruptcy," reads the Resilient filing.

Asked for a comment on Snyder's behavior, Laifer tells me:

"Six Flags is clearly and obviously being used and abused by Mr. Snyder and Red Zone to further the economics of Mr. Snyder, certain members of the [Six Flags] board of directors and management, Johnny Rockets, Dick Clark Productions and Red Zone entities at the expense of all Six Flags stakeholders.

"Members of the management team have exacerbated the situation by emulating Mr. Snyder's behavior in recklessly pursuing their own self interests. Certain advisors and agents to the company have participated in these shenanigans for their own benefit. The board of directors has not stopped this behavior and has repeatedly violated their fiduciary obligation. We are hopeful that the court will recognize what is going on and put a stop to this immediately, if not sooner."

Makes sense to me. The next hearing in Six Flags bankruptcy case is scheduled for next Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

But he's still a winner with me! I wonder if that makes him feel better.

***

The Watkins Hornets took a Pop Warner Pee Wee national title over the weekend with a 22-8 win over a Miami Club, the Florida City Razorbacks, in Orlando. Watkins becomes the first DC team to win a championship since the Department of Parks and Recreation melded its youth football operation with the Boys and Girls Clubs leagues.

In a press release, Mayor Fenty called Watkins' win "an inspiration to youth around the nation." He continued, "This win is truly a testament to the fact that discipline in athletics and education leads to victory."

Hear hear, Mr. Mayor! Imagine the setbacks America's youth would have suffered had those uninspiring, undisciplined truant Pee Wees from Florida City taken the crown!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Redskins beat another horrendous QB? The NFL should go to yellow card system? Another Open Letter to Tiger Woods update? Even Joe Theismann's a better punt returner slams Randle El? The Redskins confess there is no waiting list? Dan Snyder speaks the truth?)

***

The big kids came home winners, too. Now three of the Redskins four wins have come against teams quarterbacked by Josh Johnson, Chris Simms and JaMarcus Russell, possibly the worst trio of QBs in the NFL in this decade. (Marc Bulger of the Rams is the only real starter to lose to the Skins this year.)

***

The absurdity of the NFL's personal foul rule was made plain in the first half of yesterday's game. When Fred Davis got a 15-yard penalty for waving a hand in front of his face after a touchdown, the Skins had to kick off from their own 15, and the Raiders took the kickoff to near midfield and scored a TD a few plays later. No way did Davis' crime earn that punishment. The refs were at it again at the end of the first half, flagging the Raiders bench for yelling about a horrible interference call, and the refs made everything worse by giving the Skins another 15 yards, and placing the ball near midfield. So instead of taking a knee and running out the clock, Jason Campbell led a quick TD drive, and Washington never looked back.

This has probably been proposed a billion times before, but: If getting rid of shenanigans was really the goal, why wouldn't the NFL go to the yellow card system used in soccer, especially for offenses that have nothing to do with the action? After a player gets one mulligan, he has no excuse if he gets another one that game, or accumulates enough to get a suspension. The shenanigans would disappear, and the outcomes of games wouldn't be so affected. But, as ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy would point out, that's the whole point of sticking with the status quo.

***

There is no Waiting List (Cont.): The Redskins are offering fans a chance to buy Cowboys tickets for christmas gifts .

But but but but but! What happened to, "The games have been sold out since 1966!?" Didn't Dan Snyder tell me there's a waiting list of "over 200,000!?"

And now the Redskins are selling pairs of tickets, and not even bothering with that "These were returned from the opposing team" drivel? Dang! Next we're gonna find out there is no Santa! Or that there really is no NFL blackout rule, anyway.

***

Open Letter to Tiger Woods Update! Today's entry comes courtesy of the Sri Lanka Guardian, from a member of the Sri Lankan military:

Sadly a lot of men fail to understand that most of women lose their beauty, shape and curves or supermodel like figures after child births. We men need to accept equal responsibility for our women’s losing shape, figure and attractiveness. It is for the most part for our needing to have children, or else for failure to wear a condom! It seems most want children rather than need children.

If a realistic man observes the daily work or chores of his loving wife he would realize and appreciate that though they say, which I doubt, that men think about sex every seven seconds. But I think a woman with kids to care and provide for does not think on the average at least once a day! Because our wives are preoccupied with cooking, home work, extracurricular activities of the children etc. Our wives get sexual urges from time to time because they are human beings too. Sometimes unfortunately not when are in the mood! As men we need to be in good communication with her and seize the moment when it presented itself.

We should have ‘experimented’ all we want before marriage, and after marriage it is sacrifice, give and take when it is possible!

I think Tiger Woods is adapt his lifestyle to your writings, Mr. Sri Lankan Military Man!

***

Say it's so,  Joe!

Joe Theismann spoke the truth on his radio show this morning. Talking about Antwaan Randle El's punt return ability, the Redskins former QB and (briefly) punt returner, announced: I would never say that I can do something better than someone. But I can."

While on the subject of truth speaking: I slam Dan Snyder whenever I come across something he says that simply isn't true — like when he says the Redskins waiting list for season tickets is 200,000, for example.

So when he says something that rings true, I should also point that out. Well, over the weekend I found a 2005 article from the Washington Post that has Snyder saying something as true as true gets. The piece, about Snyder's non-football business dealings, says that Snyder and co-hort Mark Shapiro both "say they will do for Six Flags what they did for... the Redskins."

I take Snyder et al at their word.

***

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We couldn't be happier!

The bankrupt company's creditors are asking the courts to hold up proceedings until they can investigate the relationship between Six Flags and Red Zone LLC, an investment group Snyder formed with a lot of Redskins Park, including team bigwigs Vincent "Vinny" Cerrato and Karl Swanson. Snyder used the group's Six Flags stock holdings take over the amusement park chain via a stockholder coup in 2005. Snyder anointed Mark Shapiro, also a Red Zone member, as made CEO of Six Flags.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that in recent filings with the court, attorneys for the firms holding notes for Six Flags, which is now more than $2 billion-plus in debt, singled out as questionable several actions made under Snyder's tenure that involve Red Zone.

Among the dubiousest: Red Zone's sale of a chunk of Dick Clark Productions to Six Flags, a deal that took place shortly after Snyder acquired the production company.

Back to us: SIX Flagging pegged that sale as fishy long ago. In a July 2008 post in this space, we called it "a bizarre transaction that essentially amounted to one of Snyder’s private equity outfits (Red Zone) making a $40 million sale to one of Snyder’s public equity outfits (Six Flags)."

Think the Private Snyder, playing with his own money, would strike a fair bargain with the Public Snyder, who was spending stockholders' loot?

Sure he would....IN OPPOSITE LAND!

Some folks were kinder to the deal: Rick Munarriz, a pundit for Motley Fool who urged invest in Six Flags under Snyder from the time he took over as Chairman of the Board until most nails were in the coffin, called the Dick Clark Productions sale "brilliant.

The investors also called for an investigation of a school of fishy moves Snyder and the board made in April, just before Six Flags filed for bankruptcy protections, including: giving raises, doling out $4.5 million in bonuses, and pledging big chunks of equity in the company when it comes out of reorganization.

All the perks to Snyder's insiders came as common stockholders investments were heading toward worthlessness.

If Six Flags' portion of Dick Clark Productions was scheduled to revert to Private Snyder and his investment buddies after the re-organization, well, we might have us some trouble!

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Dan Snyder's Six Flags soap opera.

Sports leagues, like romantic relationships, can't survive taking a break. Last year AFL owners thought they were different, announcing that while they'd be spending the 2009 season apart, they weren't breaking up.

Again: Just need some space. Just taking some time off from each other before getting back together.

Well, this week, several AFL owners leaked to the press the date that they'll be getting back together: The 12th....OF NEVER!

The AFL is dead.

The disbanding means, alas, Dan Snyder won't ever bring us the AFL team he promised back in 1999.

(AFTER THE JUMP: MMA is the next arena football? How many Redskins blogs are out there? Dan Steinberg marvels at whose muscles? The Washington Times toasts Bruce Smith? Michael Vick is partying where? The Nats are still playing?)

Snyder bought the DC franchise rights for the AFL shortly after taking over the Redskins. He said back then that he was going to name the indoor team the Warriors, and registered trademarks for that name and for an arrow-and-feather logo and helmet design.

Then Snyder never made any move toward putting that team together.

At the time, I figured Snyder only registered the marks because it looked like he could lose federal trademark protections on "Redskins" for being racist, and he wanted a fall-back name ready.

All these years later, I still agree with myself. Guess we'll never know what his real intentions were.

No official announcement of the league's disbanding has yet appeared on the AFL's web site.

However, the league's "Mission Statement" is still prominently placed:

“To serve our community with pride and passion as a quality example of individual and team excellence on the field, in the office, at the arena and within the community by consistently exceeding our customers’ expectations by demonstrating the highest character, appreciation and respect for our game, customers, teammates and partners as a cost-effective and visionary organization providing a total entertainment experience.”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....Among the few things I can think of more boring than reading the AFL Mission Statement is watching an arena football game.

Columnist Ray Ratto takes the indoor football and runs with it. Ratto links indoor football with Twitter, and says UFC is the next AFL.

I agree.

***

In case you missed it: Dan Snyder's SIX Flags lost another $121 million-plus change this spring. Who's to blame? God, government, Mother Nature, Swine Flu, Jesus' death, and minimum wage employees, say Dan Snyder and Six Flags co-captain Mark Shapiro.

And so what if Six Flags is in the toilet? Dan Snyder just wants to win, dammit!

***

The Great Dan Steinberg marvels at the big muscles the Redskins have. Thank goodness the NFL has been so out-front in the drug testing realm, so that I and other media types, not to mention all football fans, don't have to waste a single second wondering whether ANY of these behemoths achieved this unnatural looking state through any means other than just eating real good and throwing lots of steel!

Way to keep it clean, NFL! Just say no, kids!

***

The Michael Vick Watch goes on off the football field, too. An event called the "Michael Vick Community Celebration" scheduled for this weekend in his hometown of Newport News, Va., was cancelled because, organizers said, Vick had to be in Atlanta for a Humane Society event.

But then no animal rights types in Atlanta would confirm that Vick is supposed to be there, either.

The big questions: What sort of creeps would organize a Vick "celebration" now? Who can even be near the guy and look at him without thinking, "Yucky!"?

***

Speaking of troubled Tidewater athletes: Real odd story in the Washington Times with longtime football writer Dave Elfin working mightily to try to rehab Bruce Smith's image just after the Hokie/Bill/Redskin's conviction on a third DUI arrest in 12 years.

The city of Virginia Beach cancelled a party that was going to celebrate Smith's induction to the Hall of Fame because of his drinking and driving problems.

Elfin argues that for a guy with three DUI arrests he's great with kids, and a great businessman, too, for a guy with three DUI arrests.

"If I hadn't done what I did on the football field," Smith  says of his buying things for an old football coach in his hometown, "I wouldn't have been afforded the opportunity to give back in such a fashion."

Well, there's that, Bruce, plus: you'd be in jail now.

***

The blog DC Pro Sports Report has a compendium of all the Redskins sites out there. Good god, you won't believe how many there are.

***

Nats have a six-run eighth and beat Florida, 6-4. Greatest comeback win of the season! Three-game winning streak!

Uh, oh! This just in: Until further notice, it's still football season! Just as things were getting exciting! Darn!

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Team Snydiro – Chairman Dan Snyder and CEO Mark Shapiro — have now been telling the world for almost four years that Six Flags has gotten things together.

Today, more proof that Six Flags hasn't gotten things together.

Shapiro emerged from hiding this morning to release another set of dismal financial figures for the bankrupt Six Flags, these from the second quarter 2009.

This report, like every report the company has issued since Snyder took over the company in late 2005 amid big boasts of how he was going to right the ship, contained awful numbers.

Six Flags, already more than $2 billion in debt, lost another $121.6 million.

Also as with previous releases, Snydiro blamed everything and everybody but themselves and their management for the company's atrocious fiscal state.

God and governments were particularly culpable, according to Snydiro.

"Our decline in performance is a reflection of all that surrounds Six Flags — a severe recession, a balance sheet restructuring process, the swine flu pandemic, adverse foreign currency impact at our international parks and miserable weather, particularly at our East Coast parks," Shapiro said in a statement.

That's it?

Nah!

Shapiro also fingered the "timing of Easter" and the "minimum wage increase" as factors in the rock-bottom bottom line he and Snyder showed the More Flags, More Fun! investors.

Wanna blame Easter for your woes? Go ahead. Whatever. But that minimum wage claim is outstanding, even from Snydiro. The figures released by Six Flags today, Snydiro said, covered the period that began April 1 and "ended June 30, 2009."

Teensy quibble, Snydiro: The Federal minimum wage went from $6.55 to $7.25 a week on JULY 24, 2009!

Nice try, Snydiro!

Geez, this same ol' whine from Six Flags management has got me sleepy. Good thing that during the second quarter, amid the bankrupty filings and dealing with the lack of a raise in the minimum wage and all things just sinking more to hell, Snydiro started selling an Official Mattress of Six Flags!

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Dan Snyder's Six Flags soap opera!

Dan Snyder's business partner and protege was named CEO of Six Flags when Snyder took over the amusement park chain by leading a stockholder coup in 2005. And for a long time, Shapiro was front and center whenever the company was in the news. Shapiro generally came off like Leonardo DiCaprio in "Titanic," hanging off the bow of the big boat and boasting that he was on top of the world; for as long as Shapiro talked Six Flags up, everybody knew his ship was eventually gonna sink.

But since the sinking actually took place — with Six Flags' Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in June and the wipeout of whatever was left of Snyder and Shapiro's investment in the company via Red Zone LLC, a kitty once worth more than $120 million — Shapiro has been largely absent. (Six Flags stock traded today for between 11 and 12 cents a share, down from $11.93 shortly after Snyder's takeover, and the company's reorganization plan calls for the common shares to be declared officially worthless.)

Shapiro wrote an open letter to Six Flags employees telling them to stay the course, then, far as I can tell, disappeared from public view. Other company officials have made the public statements when Six Flags announced marketing deals with an automaker, a video game producer, a condiment and a mattress maker, and when opened a hair salon.

The loudest silence from Shapiro came yesterday, when the amusement chain, as it has every year since the Snyd-iro team's been in place, declared that customers love Six Flags more now than they did under the previous management regime. The press release let somebody named "Mark Quenzel," identified as "Six Flags Executive Vice President of Park Strategy and Management," spew the phony great state of affairs the way Shapiro used to leading up to the company's collapse.

There's been no announcement from the company about a change in Shapiro's status, and according to Six Flags' headquarters in New York he's still onboard as CEO and "active" in running the company.

But all these absences beg some questions: Is Shapiro taking the summer off? Is he taking care of business for his other bankrupt company?

Or has he jumped ship?

Snyder's sub-Mensa-esque brainchild, the network of stand-alone kiddie hair salons known as Six Flags Rollercoaster Cuts, opened its first outlet in West Hartford, Ct., and started hawking costly coif makeovers with dumbass names — The Glammy, Zoink, Big Kapow and Blama Jama – to breeders of young New England bluebloods.

Yet the liberal media was only tweeting about the parent company's economic woes.

Seems Vegas is torn over what will come first: Snyder's company going bankrupt or 64 1/2 seed Morehead State getting bounced from the NCAA Tournament. (Gimme Morehead in that pool!)

In a conference call with Six Flags investors this morning, Snyder's cohort Mark Shapiro pinned Six Flags' sorry chances for staying afloat on a failure to communicate with his major creditors.

I'm no Ben Bernanke, but I'd say the hole Six Flags finds itself in is probably related to both whatever communication breakdown Shapiro is whining about, plus the fact that his company is MORE THAN $2 BILLION IN DEBT!

Yet before we credit all of Six Flags' problems to Snyder's ineptness, let's gander at Mark Shapiro's portfolio.

Shapiro's run with Snyder at Six Flags, during which the company's stock has gone from $11.93 a share down to 14 cents a share this morning, has been documented here.

But there's a lot more failure where that came from.

On May 9, 2008, Shapiro was elected to the board of directors of the Tribune Company. On Dec. 9, that corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

On Nov. 12, 2008, Live Nation named Shapiro to its board of directors.

Stock in the company traded at $7.84 on the day Shapiro was brought on board.

Today, Live Nation stock (LYV) was going for $2.64.

Shapiro is also a member of the United States Travel and Tourism Advisory Board.

The U.N. World Tourism Organization forecast a few weeks ago that a massive "tourism slump" was about to hit the U.S.

So maybe it's not Snyder? Maybe it's really The Curse of Mark Shapiro that's put Six Flags on the brink of nothingness?

Maybe we owe the Redskins owner an apology for all this Six Flagging muckraking?

Nah!

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder's Six Flags soap opera.