X Games returns with new vision, new CEO | News

X Games is back in town in what is likely the last time it will be a standalone, Aspen-only fixture — with other changes this year and grander ones to come.

Under the leadership of new CEO Jeremy Bloom, competition kicks off Thursday night with the men’s and women’s ski knuckle huck, one of the newer events to come to the action sports “Super Bowl” as it continues to evolve along with the landscape as a whole.

Bloom, himself an entrepreneur and former freestyle skiing Olympian — albeit in the non-X Games discipline of moguls — highlighted what he hopes to see in X Games as it embarks on a new format, the X Games League, as soon as next year.

“The goal is to take X Games more mainstream,” Bloom said in a Zoom interview with the Aspen Daily News last week. “We think our athletes have mainstream appeal. We don’t think of them just as action sports athletes, we think of them as the best athletes in the world and what they do, nobody else can do. So, we’re excited to build this global brand and expand the aperture of how we think about X Games and what we think about action sports athletes.”

He provided more details on the league, which will be team-based and feature 10 athletes selected via a draft like you see in the four major leagues in the United States. The team names will be branded by sponsors and Bloom — a public advocate for athlete compensation and mental health during his competitive days as a skier and a college football player at University of Colorado and professional in the NFL — said that all athletes will be on salary for the first time.

The competition will be a schedule of eight international competitions including both summer and winter events.

They are also looking to make the competitions more approachable for the casual fan with simplified scoring and are exploring adding other disciplines.

This year, some of these changes are being put to the test in Aspen. Bloom noted that they’re testing out a new playoffs-and-finals format this year for competitions, which will whittle the field down and provide, in theory, creating more “riveting moments.” As reported by Forbes’ Michelle Bruton on Tuesday, they’re also testing out AI-assisted scoring for snowboard SuperPipe on Thursday and Friday.

X Games in Aspen

As for the connection to Aspen, Bloom noted that it’s been the iconic home of the event for more than two and a half decades and wants to find a way to keep an event in the Roaring Fork Valley. When asked directly what the future of X Games in Aspen looks like, Bloom noted that Aspen had not yet entered a bid to be a host.

“We have 35 official bids from around the world, both winter and summer,” Bloom said last week. “Aspen is not one of them. So we have work to do; we’re having those conversations now. We have a new model for X Games and it’s hard sometimes to embrace a new model when you’ve sort of had the same model for 27 years or so, but it is my goal to figure out a way to keep Winter X Games in Aspen because I just think it’s absolutely iconic and I hope we can get there.”

He added that the opportunity window for bidding was “very close” to closing.

When reached for confirmation that Aspen hadn’t entered a bid, Aspen Skiing Co. Vice President of Revenue John Rigney said that statement was “inaccurate,” not in the sense that Aspen had not entered a bid, but that local organizers were not approached with the possibility.

However, Rigney said that the contract to host the 2025 X Games included mutual triggers for the event to return the next two years. A spokesperson for X Games confirmed that those options could be triggered to make Aspen a host site of a prospective X Games League event.

“We have not seen any bid that’s being done in conjunction with this global league,” Rigney said. “We have our deal in place. It has extension parameters in it. If it were to work out, I think it’d be great because I agree [with Bloom] that this relationship has been rock solid for many years and I would love it to continue.”

Rigney said that X Games personnel would be the ones to ask about the decision-making process for those mutual triggers; the X Games spokesperson declined to comment on the specifics of the contract.

Getting in the gate

For the first time, X Games Aspen is a paid-ticket-only event this year and tickets are sold out. On aftermarket vendors such as StubHub, general admission tickets — which started at $50 through the official sale — are reaching into the hundreds of dollars. On StubHub, a general admission ticket for Saturday was $390 as of the time of writing.

However, there is some hope for Roaring Fork Valley high school students — through SkiCo, the first 500 local students on-site each day will receive free general admission access for that day. General admission grants access to all competitions and all music for that day.

Students must bring a valid high school ID from any school in the Roaring Fork Valley to the Buttermilk ticket office. Wristbands are limited to 500 students each day and are distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Dropping in Thursday

Moving to a Thursday through Saturday schedule for the first time in years, events kick off tonight. Women’s ski Knuckle Huck starts at 5 p.m., followed by men’s ski Knuckle Huck at 5:45 and women’s snowboard Big Air at 6:45 and men’s snowboard SuperPipe at 8 p.m. Daily Bread performs starting at 9:15 p.m.

The full schedule is available at XGames.com.