X Games Celebrates 30 Years While Charting Bold New Future
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X Games celebrated its 30th anniversary at X Games Salt Lake City 2025 ahead of bold new changes. X Games League, a new format debuting in 2026, will shake up the brand.
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July 1, 2025
01:30 PM
Forbes
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SportsMoneyX Games Celebrates 30 Years While Charting Bold New FutureByMichelle Bruton, Contributor
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights
Michelle Bruton covers action sports and the Olympics and Paralympics
AuthorJul 01, 2025, 01:30pm EDTJul 01, 2025, 02:31pm EDTArisa Trew competes in Women's Skateboard Vert during X Games at Utah State Fairpark on June 28,
More 2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Thirty years ago this month, Rhode Island played host to a new ESPN-owned action sports competition: the Extreme Games
The event would quickly be rebranded to X Games, and action sports would never be the same
In that first Extreme Games, athletes competed in 27 events across nine sport : bungy jumping, eco-challenge, in-line skating, skateboarding, skysurfing, sport climbing, street luge, biking and water sports
The event attracted 198,000 spectators
Two years later, the first Winter X Games were held in Big Bear, California, televised to 198 countries and territories in 21 different languages
Last week, X Games celebrated its 30th anniversary in Salt Lake City, Utah, which hosted a Summer X Games event for the first time
Marking three decades vides a natural opportunity to take a step back and examine where X Games has been and where it is now
Its owner has changed; in 2022, private equity firm MSP Sports Capital acquired a majority interest from ESPN ductions
The competition gram is far less varied; skateboarding is still a summer staple, joined by BMX freestyle and Moto X
Winter X Games has narrowed to skiing and snowboarding
The format is to undergo a major shake-up: in 2026, X Games League will launch
Eventually, the league will see teams of athletes compete in eight annual events—four summer and four winter—for individual medals and overall team points
More on that in a moment
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes | Frase ByForbes™Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The PhrasePlay NowPinpoint By LinkedinGuess The CategoryPlay NowQueens By LinkedinCrown Each RegionPlay NowCrossclimb By LinkedinUnlock A Trivia LadderPlay Now But one thing has remained the same and ly always will: the athletes who compete at X Games are the best in their sport, continuing to innovate and raise the bar higher for those who will come after them. “ESPN and the X Games recognized a passion-filled youth culture and its potential entertainment value to the world, giving an entire generation of thrill seekers a way to turn our hobbies into careers,” Moto X legend Travis Pastrana told me
In 1999, Tony Hawk launched skateboarding—and X Games—into the main when he landed the first 900 at X Games San Francisco
In 2006, Pastrana inked his name in the action sports record books when he landed the first double backflip at X Games Los Angeles
Shaun White landed snowboarding’s first double cork McTwist 1260 at X Games Aspen 2010
Two years later, Aspen was a hotbed for gression
Heath Frisby landed the first snowmobile front flip in competition
Snowboarders Mark McMorris and Torstein Horgmo landed the first-ever triple corks in competition
These kinds of moments continue today
In 2021, at an X Games Vista devoid of spectators due to Covid-19, 12-year-old Gui Khury landed the first 1080 on a non-mega ramp…while competing against Hawk in Vert Best Trick
In 2023, teenager Arisa Trew landed the first competition 720 in women’s skateboarding at X Games Ventura after landing it at Tony Hawk’s Vert Alert three weeks earlier
At X Games Salt Lake City this past weekend, Ryan Williams landed the first triple backflip to dirt in BMX
Ryan Williams makes history at X Games Salt Lake City 2025 by landing the first triple backflip to
More dirt in BMXJeff Zielinski Among athletes, X Games has always been known as a contest that invites gression
Now, with X Games League, MSP Sports Capital and new CEO Jeremy Bloom are aiming to make X Games’ format as gressive as its athletic feats. “As X Games turns 30, we’re staying true to what made it legendary—putting the world’s best action sports athletes on the biggest stage—while taking things to the next level with some big moves,” Bloom told me. “We’re launching X Games League in 2026 with team competition, athlete drafts and real salaries to give riders more support and fans more to. ” While X Games has historically held one U. -based summer and winter event each year, it has frequently supplemented them with international competitions in places Norway, Japan and Australia
The new X Games League will trace the globe; 35 cities around the world, from Shanghai to Berlin to St
Moritz, put forth bids to become host cities
The winning cities will be announced later this year. “We’re using AI to generate custom ary in multiple languages, so fans around the world can experience the sport in a way that feels native to them,” Bloom said
Hosts will assume a portion of the cost to stage events, and in turn X Games will partner with these cities for anywhere from three to ten years and invest in each community by supporting skate parks, youth action sports grams and community initiatives
In March, X Games named WNBA executive Annie Lokesh as Head of X Games League
Her responsibilities will include overseeing league operations and growth initiatives and shaping the model and competitive structure
At the conclusion of the Salt Lake City event last weekend, X Games announced its inaugural X Games League “Founder Athletes”: Ryan Sheckler, Nyjah Huston and Ryan Williams
These athletes are defining figures in their sports (skateboarding for Sheckler and Huston and BMX for Williams)
In their role, they will help league organizers design formats, shape the athlete experience and build a fan-first culture
Huston and Williams are still actively racking up X Games medals
Sheckler, 35, burst onto the scene in 2003 when he won gold at 13 years old
He hadn’t competed at an X Games since 2017…but that changed last weekend in Salt Lake City
The veteran returned to competition in the skateboard street final alongside Huston. “X Games has always pushed the level of gression, and it still does to this day,” Sheckler told me. “It has changed my life as a teenager and into my adult years
After competing this weekend in my 21st appearance, it relit a fire in me that I didn’t know still existed
I can’t wait to compete again. ” Over the next several months, X Games will announce more Founder Athletes—presumably including female ones—as well as team names, season schedules, athlete drafts, and media partners
X Games League will feature a draft and a free agency period
It will have a fantasy league and it will offer sports betting
These are marked changes for action sports, which has always been decentralized and where many athletes navigate an uneasy balance between the structure of competing and the freedom of filming parts
The idea is that if X Games were set up more a traditional league—such as F1, which is frequently cited by leadership as a model for the new league—it will attract a more main fan base
To that end, in the same way Drive to Survive duced a new generation of F1 fans, reality series ing X Games athletes as they travel the world to compete are in the works
One, from The Challenge ducers Bunim/Murray ductions, has already been announced
X Games Battleground will bring together 30 current and past X Games athletes in an extreme competition series, crowning the top all-around female and male competitors
The inaugural Summer X Games League (SXGL) will be headlined by skateboarding and BMX
Winter X Games League (WXGL) will launch in early 2027 with skiing and snowboarding
More sports are expected to be added as the league takes shape
Mountain bike, in-line and snowmobile athletes have already expressed hope that their sports will make their X Games return
Though Moto X is not being highlighted as part of the 2026 launch, it is part of the plan for X Games League in the future
The X Games of 2026 and beyond will hardly resemble that first competition in Rhode Island 30 years ago
But through all the event’s permutations, the one constant has been the athletes who never stop pushing to gress their sports
As Williams described it, “X Games League is attempting to innovate just we do with action sports. ” “It’s all honoring where we’ve been while building what’s next,” Bloom said
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