{"id":190640,"date":"2026-03-13T20:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T20:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190640\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T20:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T20:21:07","slug":"sesame-street-sues-seaworld-parent-wants-to-end-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190640\/","title":{"rendered":"Sesame Street sues SeaWorld parent, wants to end contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

The owner of \u201cSesame Street\u201d is suing United Parks & Resorts<\/a>, the parent company of SeaWorld Orlando<\/a> and other theme parks, claiming that royalty payments have not been paid and other breeches of contract.<\/p>\n

In the suit, Sesame Workshop<\/a> says it wants the court to terminate the license agreement and requests an unspecified amount in damages and legal fees.<\/p>\n

The case is Sesame Workshop v. SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc. filed Thursday in the Southern District of New York<\/a>. SeaWorld Parks, based in Orlando, changed its name to United Parks & Resorts in 2024. The two companies have been in contractual agreements for 45 years, Sesame Workshop said.<\/p>\n

Sesame\u2019s lawsuit traces the dispute to 2022, saying\u00a0SeaWorld\u2019s owner failed to pay millions of dollars in royalties due to Sesame Workshop for Sesame Place<\/a>, a theme park in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. In 2024,\u00a0SeaWorld was ordered to pay the full amount owed from arbitration plus interest, but it still ignored Sesame Workshop\u2019s requests for payment, the suit says. After writs of garnishment against SeaWorld were ordered the next year, SeaWorld paid in October 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom September 2025 onwards, SeaWorld, in brazen disregard of the agreement, unilaterally stopped paying royalties to Sesame Workshop and, until recently, even ignored Sesame Workshop\u2019s requests for royalty reports needed to calculate new invoices, a further breach of the agreement,\u201d the suit says.<\/p>\n

United\u2019s official response on Friday said \u201cWe are aware of the lawsuit filed by Sesame Workshop and look forward to setting the record straight in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

SeaWorld Orlando opened its 6-acre Sesame Street Land, a major revamp of its Shamu\u2019s Happy Harbor playground area, in March 2019. It includes re-created scenes from the children\u2019s show, including the stoop at 123 Sesame Street, Mr. Hooper\u2019s store and Big Bird\u2019s nest. There are rides, including a Grover-themed roller coaster, Abby\u2019s Flower Tower and the Sunny Day Carousel.\u00a0 A parade stocked with \u201cSesame Street\u201d characters is staged daily through the land.<\/p>\n

Disney World sets date for Buzz Lightyear ride\u2019s comeback<\/a><\/p>\n

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay<\/a>, also owned by United Parks, has a land called Sesame Street Safari of Fun.\u00a0 There is also a Sesame Place theme park in San Diego. SeaWorld San Antonio maintained a Sesame Street Bay of Play area until 2024; that area was rethemed as\u00a0 Rescue Jr.<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n

Other grievances listed in the recent Sesame Workshop court documents include lack of payment for fees owed due to the San Antonio closure, short notice on its plan to shift the San Diego park to a seasonal schedule, nonparticipation in branding and business meetings for nearly two years and the removed access to their shared social media approvals document.<\/p>\n

Mediation was conducted Thursday, but the parties did not reach a resolution, the suit says. \u201cMediation efforts are now complete,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n

dbevil@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of \u201cSesame Street\u201d is suing United Parks & Resorts, the parent company of SeaWorld Orlando and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,104,28,114,266,1335,139,141,140,2043,109,76686,76687,76688,76689,135,2411,106,1316,107],"class_list":["post-190640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-business","tag-entertainment","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-seaworld","tag-social","tag-social-business","tag-social-entertainment","tag-social-theme-parks","tag-social-travel","tag-tampa","tag-theme-parks","tag-things-to-do","tag-tourism","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}