For the time being, one year in a row, ESPN will host the summer edition of the X Games at various locations in Southern California, adding a return to two of the venues it used in 2021: “Slayground” from X Games Moto X medalist Axell Hodges. complex in Encinitas and the CA Training Facility (CATF) high-performance skateboard educational center in Vista.
This summer, however, the X Games will inaugurate two new disciplines in skateboarding and BMX MegaPark. These occasions will take place in the mythical garden park of 13-time X Games medalist Elliot Sloan in Vista, which features one of the few mini mega-amplifiers. in the world.
Over time, Sloan has turned the ramp into a full-fledged “MegaPark” by adding a recoil and a quarter tube in March 2020, giving skaters 4 attempts at overall figures in their career. Big air competitions, the debut of the MegaPark course will combine all the elements that skaters and the public love about big air and the green.
The SloanYard also includes a 100-foot green ramp, which will house the most productive green skateboard and green skateboard ride.
As in 2021, this year’s event, which will take place from July 20 to 24, will be closed to the public without the presence of spectators. A long return to a more traditional central venue that can accommodate on-site enthusiasts is on the cards, said Vice President of Programming and Acquisition Tim Reed.
But the ratings showed the concept that hosting the festival in a plethora of colorful venues, adding personal athlete amenities that the public rarely sees, would appeal to viewers. X Games 2021 streams saw a 13% increase in X Games Minneapolis 2019 viewership on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC.
And of the 4 X Games 2021 broadcasts, the coveted 18- to 24-year-old demographic so vital in the world of action sports saw a 34% increase from 2019. (The 2020 summer event, which was intended to be the last to be held in Minneapolis, canceled due to Covid-19. )
“We’re blatantly failing at events with the fans and the crowd and we’ll come back to that at some point,” Reed said. without sacrificing quality.
In addition, it would be tricky for the X Games production team to build courses in a stadium or arena that rival athletes like Sloan and Hodges they’ve been racing on for years. Both are now educational centers sponsored through Monster Energy.
“We’ve tried a lot of tactics to emulate or make sure we’re consistent with existing progressions, and a lot of those progressions are built and evolved in the athletes’ own services or in their backyard,” Reed said.
Sloan, who won five gold medals at the X Games (four in big air and one in the most productive green trick), always had hopes of being able to host X Games events on his back ramp. But sponsorship disputes prevented it from materializing; Sloan’s green ramp was built in partnership with former sponsor Rockstar, while X Games has an existing relationship with Monster Energy.
However, Sloan, who officially turned birdhouse pro in July 2020 with his first exclusive deck, also joined Monster Energy in 2022, freeing him and his megapark to host X Games events. “Timing is paramount,” he said.
In fact, in recent years, organizers had been in talks with Sloan to recreate his setup for the X Games. However, with the pandemic still ongoing, both sides saw the possibility of bringing the X Games to SloanYard this year.
“It doesn’t look real,” Sloan said. loop moment. “
In the age of Covid, relationships with sponsors and partners have had to evolve overall, as many live events have moved to a hybrid or even completely virtual format. X Games incorporate on-site sponsor activations into their X Fest, where viewers can watch discover sponsors’ products, get giveaways, and participate in giveaways.
While the X Games have gone completely virtual for the audience of some of its winter and summer events since 2020, organizers have had to find new artistic tactics to incorporate sponsor activations, adding a virtual X Fest in which enthusiasts can simply create an avatar to navigate the landscape.
X Games has also stepped up its social content, adding TikTok, the pandemic. Summer X Games 2021 generated more than 105 million video views, a 439% increase over X Games Minneapolis 2019. This included 1. 9 million live views on TikTok, while 17 competitions were streamed live on the platform.
“We’ve continued our appointments with our partners and looked for other pricing tactics through branding, whether it’s social content, virtual content, more exclusive integrations within our programs,” Reed said. “We’ve been pivoting dating and adding price on other tactics since we don’t host thousands of other people on the site. “
The Summer X Games 2022 will be offering 18 disciplines in 3 sports: skateboarding (MegaPark, men’s and women’s park, men’s and women’s street trick, street trick, green and green trick), BMX (dirt, dave Mirra’s park trick, MegaPark, park and street) and Moto X (110s, trick, whip, freestyle and quarterpipe top air).
In addition to MegaPark skateboards and BMX, Sloan’s SloanYard will host the most productive green skateboard and green lap.
The Hodges Slayground will house all moto X disciplines as well as BMX dirt.
For the time being in a row, the LUCF will host a skateboard street and a skateboard park; however, this year, BMX park and street runners will also sign up for the facility’s skaters.
All X Games 2021 and X Games Chiba 2022 gold medalists with returning disciplines will get automatic invitations to the July event.
Of the 2021 Summer X Games in BMX, this includes Pat Casey, whose own “Dreamyard” hosted BMX events last year, on BMX ground; Andy Buckworth on the world’s most productive lap of men’s BMX; Kevin Peraza at BMX Park; Mike Varga on the most productive lap of Dave Mirra and Garrett Reynolds’ BMX park on BMX Street.
In Moto X, returning guest gold medalists come with Luc Ackermann in freestyle, Tom Parsons in whip, Hodges in 110, Rob Adelberg in fastest lap and Colby Raha in quarterpipe top air.
On skateboarding, the 2021 gold medalists come with Liam Pace at the men’s skateboard park; Olympic bronze medalist Sky Brown at the women’s skateboard park; Jimmy Wilkins on green skateboard; Leticia Bufoni in the street of women’s skateboarding; Dashawn Jordan on the street of male skateboarding and Jamie Foy on the street of male skateboarding.
Gui Khury made headlines last summer on the green skateboard lap when, at age 12, he landed the first 1080 on a non-mega amp – with idol Tony Hawk, who entered the contest as a wonderful competitor, watching.
The big question for 2022 will be whether anyone else has the 1080 in their bag. Mitchie Brusco, who won bronze in green skateboard last summer, the first to win a big-air 1260 at the X Games Minneapolis 2019. Sloan’s mini megaamplifier is rarely has a regulatory length for large air competitions, so the 1260s are unlikely, but they’re big enough for some of the higher turns.
For Sloan, he will stick to 900 and leave the full rotations of more than 3 to the youngsters. “I have no preference for reviewing anything,” he said with a laugh. Still, his planned career includes many rotations. “It’s almost like the contest forces me to do it just because I know that’s what scores points,” Sloan said.
The format of the new MegaPark course for BMX and skateboarding will be 30 minutes of jam sessions with 8 athletes, and the most productive race counts. It was vital that the festival in its configuration was structured in this way, Sloan explained. “I skate this all the time, and for me it’s hard to do a full race with 4 tricks,” he said.
In recent years, the X Games have moved from marked events in certain disciplines to the jam-session format, in which athletes are judged by the overall impression and move up and down in a dynamic classification of the competition.
The benefits are twofold; this gives athletes more runs and also avoids conditions like those noticed when skateboarding or skiing at the Olympics, where the score limit can be set too early on one occasion without the athletes having the ability to make things move in the end, or scores would be affected. they may seem confusing or debatable in general.
“The content we produce and deliver are athletes on the move who do what they do and they do it very well,” Reed said. as much as possible at the event. A lot of the feedback we’ve gained is that other people don’t really lose the scores as they know. Making it a better running event makes it easy to get as many tries as possible from athletes and stay loose.
More than 15 hours of X Games action will air on ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN and the ESPN app, and all competitions will be reviewable on the X Games’ YouTube channel.