The rumors were true. Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder almost always gets his man-this time it’s ESPN programming wunderkind Mark Shapiro. The articulate and handsome 35-yr-old is leaving his primo job as Bristol’s head of programming and production Oct 1 to join Snyder’s Red Zone LLC , a private investment company (Cfax, 8/12). Snyder’s target is theme park company Six Flags, an SEC filing said. Red Zone proposes replacing a trio of Six Flags’ seven board seats with its own nominees, making Shapiro CEO of the company and Snyder chairman. Speculation is that Snyder wants to create a "mini Disney" production company with the peripatetic Shapiro at the helm. Snyder will have to win approval from more than 50% of Six Flags’ outstanding shares to shake up the board. He’ll then need a majority of the board to vote to install him and Shapiro as head honchos. — ESPN and cable sports programming will be a bit less energetic and interesting without Shapiro, whose rise to the top of Bristol’s programming heap in 12 years was meteoric. His official legacy is the establishment of ESPN Original Entertainment, the series "The PlayMakers" and nightly debate show "Pardon the Interruption," but we’ll remember him as among the most engaging, intelligent and generous cable execs on the scene.

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