Mattel once owned the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
In 1971 the maker of Barbie paid $50 million in its own stock for the Greatest Show on Earth and kept Irvin Feld, the promoter who had bought it four years earlier for $8 million, to run it. In 1982 Mattel sold the circus, three ice shows and Siegfried and Roy’s Las Vegas act back to Feld and his son for $22.8 million.
Mattel on Brandseum