Gabrielle Russon
Ending an escalating business dispute between Shamu and Big Bird, a federal Judge ordered SeaWorld to pay Sesame Workshop more than $11 million, according to court records.
At SeaWorld’s theme parks, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and the other characters from Sesame Street appear in parades and on ride themes. But behind the scenes, the Sesame Workshop nonprofit that puts on the beloved children’s show and the Orlando-based theme park company were in dispute over licensing fees from 2021 that ended up in federal court.
Sesame Workshop accused SeaWorld of failing to pay for the licensing fees, even after a panel of three arbitrators ruled in its favor in 2023. Sesame Workshop sued last year in federal court and asked a Judge to intervene.
Meanwhile, SeaWorld accused Sesame of exploiting the pandemic when its parks were closed and asked a Judge to knock down the arbitrators’ ruling.
“Sesame seized upon the pandemic to try to line its pockets,” SeaWorld argued in court records. “Sesame saw an opportunity to turn SeaWorld’s pain to its advantage. Though SeaWorld was fighting through an existential crisis triggered by the shutdown of all of its parks, Sesame — which had actually benefited during the pandemic from children’s increased reliance on television programming — was strategizing about how it could exploit the crisis to extract concessions from SeaWorld.”
A federal Judge didn’t buy SeaWorld’s argument.
U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron sided with Sesame Workshop and said the arbitration ruling stood.
Now, the Judge said SeaWorld must pay about $9.7 million plus prejudgment interest at 9% going back as far as Jan. 30, 2022, up to the present day. That interest added up to a daily rate of about $2,380, court records said. For 2022 and 2023, interest added an additional $1.7 million to SeaWorld’s total bill. In addition, SeaWorld also owes about $60,000 in arbitration costs, according to the final judgment filed in court last week.
Neither SeaWorld, Sesame Workshop nor their attorneys responded to a request for comment for this story.
It’s not the only lawsuit SeaWorld has dealt with this Summer.
SeaWorld was sued in federal court last month by one visitor who accused the company of illegally tacking on a 5% surcharge for “increased operations” that she said hadn’t been advertised and showed up as a surprise on her receipt.
Osceola County resident Tatiana Eastman’s lawsuit is seeking class action status.
SeaWorld denied many of Eastman’s allegations, although the company acknowledged “that for certain periods of time, and at certain parks, and for certain products, patrons are charged a 5% fee,” according to court filings last month.
The company argued it had not done anything wrong and added, “the surcharge was disclosed and she voluntarily paid it.”
As part of the company’s legal defense, SeaWorld argued “that she did not request that the surcharge be removed or reduced.”
