Selema Masekela On X Games’ Past, Its Present, And His Journey Back After 10 Years Away

When you think back on the biggest moments in X Games history—Travis Pastrana landing the first-ever double backflip on a dirt bike; snowboarder Shaun White earning the first perfect 100 in X Games history; snowboarder Kelly Clark landing the first 1080 by a woman in competition—one person’s voice likely anchors those memories.

It’s Selema Masekela, the “voice of action sports,” the face of X Games for 13 years, going back to the beginning of the millennium. Masekela became as much a part of the fabric of X Games as the athletes, before his departure in 2013 to pursue other projects, including a contract with Red Bull Media House and a partnership with NBC Sports to provide Olympics coverage.

But X Games is starting a new chapter in 2023, with new ownership and a creative overhaul. And that new direction is taking a page from the playbook of the past, as X Games welcomes Masekela back in 2023 not only as host, but as a talent coach and consulting producer.

A lot of time has passed since those days. Looking at the X Games highlights video announcing his return, Masekela’s first thought was, Who’s that kid?

“It’s a lot more than just a job,” Masekela told me. “I really really enjoy being able to storytell this culture and these sports and get people excited about possibly being able to take part in them themselves. That’s really what is the biggest gift for me.”

In recent years, X Games has had its peaks and valleys. Depending on who you ask, perhaps more valleys. For about two years, rumors circulated that ESPN was looking to sell the property—and then, in October 2022, it did, with a majority stake going to private equity firm MSP Sports Capital.

A lot has changed in the last decade in the way we consume media. Ten years ago, X Games was shown primarily on linear TV. Today, the broadcast has to contend with simulcasts on social media, YouTube and Twitch, and bring them all together into one cohesive strategy.

On one hand, there have been positive indicators of X Games’ future health. Digitally, X Games Aspen 2021 saw triple-digit growth on social and digital media platforms (+483% year-over-year) as onsite spectators were nixed that year due to the pandemic.

The TV broadcast—which airs across ESPN, ABC and ESPN 2—did see a spike in viewership from 2021 (605,000 average viewers) to 2022 (622,000)—but those figures are marked drops from 2018, which brought in 851,000.

New X Games CEO Steve Flisler comes from Twitch, where he served as vice president of original content. ESPN remains the domestic linear broadcast partner for X Games. While the live broadcast is the epicenter of the event, the strategy is to make the content bite-sized and deliver it in many different ways.

For instance, in addition to Masekela serving as the broadcast’s lead anchor, co-hosts Jack Mitrani and Hannah Rad will provide extended coverage on YouTube and Twitch, which will simulcast the competitions.

While there are challenges inherent in that varied media landscape, Masekela says the advantages far outweigh them.

“I know what’s taking place in the NBA and NFL more from what I watch in my social media feeds and really great content that lets me know where a team’s at and where my favorite player’s at without having to watch all of the games live,” he said. “We just consume moments so much differently.”

And X Games is all about big moments. Diehard fans will watch a competition live from beginning to end to see the storylines unfold. Perhaps an athlete who was favored to win gold falls on his or her first two runs, and everything comes down to that third and final attempt. Or perhaps an underdog moves from the bottom of the standings to the top of the podium with a huge trick or a technically perfect run.

But casual action sports fans may just want to see a clip of that huge trick or the athlete’s comments after receiving their medal. To Masekela’s point, the way X Games is broadcast in 2023 allows for all of that.

“Arguably the big moments that go viral long after the camera shuts off build more story for getting people engaged with X Games than maybe even the live broadcast does,” he said.

We’ve touched on what returning to X Games means to Masekela—but that last point, getting people engaged with X Games, encapsulates what his return means to the production.

In the 10 years he’s been away, Masekela has only engrained himself deeper in action sports’ roots, becoming an essential nutrient to their health and growth. He is motivated to bring eyes this year’s X Games not because of ratings goals, but because he’s so invested in the authentic growth of this subculture.

“I was just as shocked as everyone else when the announcement was made that X Games was sold,” Masekela said. “I was also very curious.”

Flisler asked if Masekela would take a call; they ended up talking for more than two hours about X Games’ past and what is possible for its future.

Masekela found himself impressed with Flisler’s vision, as well as his experience at Twitch and NBC.

“X Games is a legacy brand; the 29 years of history and moments that have taken place have gone far past action sports culture and are deeply a part of pop culture,” Masekela said. “When someone goes crazy doing something, they’re in ‘X Games mode.’ That gets applied to anyone who’s doing something at the craziest level of their thing. That’s so powerful.”

Flisler and his team understood that, and after hearing their ideas for the future, Masekela said it was “surprisingly easy” to make the decision to come back. His present agreement covers only X Games Aspen 2023, but the intention is that he’ll sign on for more.

Masekela now has 25 years of broadcasting experience under his belt, but when he arrived at ESPN, though he knew as much as anyone about the sports and athletes, he “knew nothing about how to storytell it as a broadcaster,” he said. ESPN trained him, flying him to Bristol multiple times for two-to-three-day seminars with the best of the best talent across the ESPN landscape.

“That was a 13-year paid TV hosting education that people go to college for and get degrees for; I got that at ESPN,” Masekela said. He was able to take that experience to E! Entertainment, where he wrote and coproduced a daily entertainment news show, and NBC Sports, broadcasting the Olympics.

Now, as a talent coach for X Games, he can pay it forward. “I think some of the young talent at X Games now that are retired athletes that haven’t had an opportunity to have some of that training, I can offer perspective and hopefully help to empower them to be the best experts they are in their sports,” Masekela said.

In a news release, Flisler called Masekela “one of the most iconic figures and voices in action sports.”

It wasn’t always that way.

“I was a 16-year-old kid who started snowboarding because he thought it looked cool,” said Masekela. “I was in a wetsuit and Sorels.”

When he entered the world of action sports 34 years ago as one of the few Black men, he often felt like “the only.”

“For women, for Black and Brown people, unless you let us know that you want us there we’re not going to show up,” Masekela said. “It’s difficult for us to exist in the world in the basic places we need to be and feel like we shouldn’t be there, and then there’s this thing [snowboarding] that really looks like it’s not for us and all the signs of how it’s marketed visibly makes it intimidating for folks to come out and have those experiences.”

For many years, Masekela and snowboarder Ben Hinkley were the only people of color visible at X Games. And “visibility is everything,” Masekela says.

“People will say, ‘Why do you have to bring race into it?’ But have they ever been stared at strangely in a lift line or asked what they’re doing there? People make off-the-cuff remarks to this day—‘That’s cool ‘you guys’ do this; I didn’t know ‘you guys’ did this.’ There are microaggressions or those real in-your-face aggressions.”

Thanks in large part to the foundation Masekela laid, however, snowboarding is more accessible than ever, and the next generation is taking ownership of it.

“That’s one of the things I feel most gifted about—I get to come back to an X Games where Zeb Powell is a competitor,” Masekela said. Powell’s fearless and often terrifying streetstyle tricks have made Knuckle Huck a fan-favorite competition at X Games, as the event tries to incorporate more elements of day-to-day snowboarding culture alongside structured contest runs.

“He’s of the best snowboarders on the planet, and if you go on his IG page you see your favorite rapper or your favrorite athletes from a whole host of other sports follow him and comment things like, ‘I’m down for this Zeb kid, I don’t even snowboard but look at this dude, it’s undeniable,’” Masekela said. “It’s a massive effect for kids to be able to see a Zeb Powell. ‘Not only does that dude look like me, but he’s the dopest, most stylish person doing this thing. That can be me too.’ That representation is everything when it comes to this sport.”

So, too, is accessibility, and much of Masekela’s work in recent years has focused on trying to improve the resort model. “It remains limited to those with the financial means to enjoy it, and that’s a handful of people,” he says. “I look to see the industry get creative in creating more accessibility and opportunities to get people to the mountains.”

What might that look like? Perhaps installing tow ropes at local hills that are government- or state-owned parks, with an investment in a snow gun and limited maintenance. Masekela sits on the board at Burton Snowboards and has been working with George Burton Carpenter and others to figure out ways to bring snowboarding to cities and urban areas outside of the mountains.

Snowboarding’s crossover into greater pop culture is another crucial element of getting more people to try the sport. Masekela has even gotten his partner, Lupita Nyong’o, standing sideways on a board. The internet was delighted when the pair announced their relationship on social media in December and when, in January, Nyong’o and her little brother, Peter, shared TikToks riding with Masekela in Wyoming.

“As a Kenyan, I never ever thought I would say this, but…I think…I like…snow,” Nyong’o says, incredulously.

“It was fun for us to be able to put out the IG video, and people’s responses were super heartwarming,” Masekela said. “It feels good to be able to share our relationship while also being able to retain our privacy. The nice thing about social media is you can share what you want to and then go about your life. And for people seeing her snowboard, it was really cool to see the manner in which people responded and being like, ‘Oh wow, that’s cool that we can be out there too.’”

The core snowboarding community that considers Masekela one of its own will be excited to see him return to the X Games stage in Aspen, January 27-29.

But for those who have really gotten to know about him in the last decade through his other endeavors—those who may not even follow action sports closely—Masekela may be opening the door to a new world.

The word he used multiple times to describe the opportunity? “Humbled.”

“I can’t believe I still get to be here in this next generation and help to tell their stories,” he said.