It’s been three decades since X Games launched as a way to both draw attention to fast-growing extreme sports that weren’t typically on television then, while also filling a hole in ESPN’s mid-summer programming and attracting a new audience.
These days, ESPN no longer owns the games, which have summer and winter components. And extreme sports are so big, they’re in the Olympics, both winter and summer. But it’s time for an overhaul of the competitions, says new-ish CEO Jeremy Bloom (no relation).
X Games new logo in black
(Logo courtesy of X Games)
Accordingly, today, X Games has rolled out new logos and related branding material, and unveiled big plans to overhaul the nature of the games themselves.
Bloom acknowledged that some of the logo and look overhaul are “vanity,” but it also includes overhauling “the behind-the-scenes plumbing” for the game, allowing for major big initiatives.
Perhaps the biggest shift, for a collection of sports featuring defiantly solo performers, will be the launch in the spring of X Games League, with four franchises featuring 40 summer athletes.
“Do the athletes like the idea of being part of this?” Bloom said. “The path to getting to adoption was not obvious. There was some defiance. It seemed especially some athletes maybe weren’t into this.”
Nonetheless, the organization reached out to dozens of athletes, hoping to interest at least 100 in participating, about the number who qualified for the last X Games competition in Salt Lake City. Ultimately, some 150 signaled they’d be open to participating, Bloom said, though some obviously won’t get a chance to compete.
The appeal to athletes was access to bigger prize purses, new ways to make money, and more opportunities for media coverage and spotlights that can help drive awareness of specific athletes.
The new league’s franchises will draft from that pool in summer sports such as skateboarding who said they were interested in participating, with five males and five females regardless of their individual sports. The long-term plan is to grow to 10 franchises, and a separate set of athletes who would take part in competitions for a winter league that would come along by early 2027, Bloom said.
“The other big point of emphasis was building an athlete-first brand,” said Bloom, who played college football at the University of Colorado and was a top World Cup skier for several years. “How can we build the next generation where the athlete can show up first? Our job to support these athletes.”
The league will feed into more events for both winter and summer, tied into bigger festival-scale surrounding live events, Bloom said. All told, X Games will have 32 hours of live events on Disney-owned ESPN and ABC next year, dramatically up from 12 to 15 in recent years.
“It gives us an opportunity to tell more stories,” Bloom said. “What are the rivalries, conflicts, how do we build these brands, like the WNBA have been able to do with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese?”
Even further out, the organization plans to expand beyond U.S.-based events into other hot action-sports markets. Brazil, for instance, is a hotbed of skateboarding, as are France, Germany and Australia. Japan has in similar fashion become a hot spot for snowboarding champions as well as several summer sports.
And judging will be built around an AI-driven automated judging system called The OWL. That will get used not only for judging performers during the big official X Games competitions, but also for would-be performers who might want to submit video of their tricks for judging and further consideration.
Bloom said such an approach can power the development of minor leagues and spotlighting up-and-coming talent, a challenge in a set of sports where some recent Olympics medalists have been as young as 13.
‘Our minor leagues are a little different than other sports,” Bloom said. “What does minor league really mean?”
In turn, use of The OWL underpins a move into gambling and fantasy sports around the competitions, ensuring more objective judging while attracting new groups of viewers.
“People like to engage in sports this way,” Bloom said. “It feels like it helps the fans feel like more is at stake.”
The company is working with a consultant that has secured approvals for the gambling component in 26 states so far, Bloom said. But the highly regulated gambling industry is particularly complicated for X Games, given all those wunderkind rising stars.
“You can’t bet on athletes who aren’t of age,” Bloom said. “It’s a big experiment.”
The four summer league teams will be announced Jan. 25, during the next Winter X Games, to be held in Aspen and the last such traditional version of what X Games was for 30 years.
MSP Sports Capital bought the X Games in 2022. MSP, whose principals are Jeff Moorad and Jahm,Najafi. Earlier this month, MSP sold its five-year-old equity interest in the McLaren Racing Formula 1 team to McLaren Group, whose backers include Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund and Abu Dhabi-based CYVN Holdings.
Terms of the stake exit weren’t disclosed, but media reports have put the deal value at between $3 billion and $5 billion, far above MSP’s 2020 investment of 560 million British pounds.