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The X Games is out to show there are riskier moves in action sports than flying upside down above a halfpipe.
The name that put action sports on the map, then turned it into big business that eventually landed in the Olympics with its risk-taking, counterculture vibe, will debut its multimillion-dollar reboot with nothing less than the future of one of the sports industry's best-recognized brands at stake.
Sports like snowboarding, skateboarding and BMX biking that were founded on a spirit of devil-may-care individuality are becoming team enterprises.
Those same sports that were founded on the idea that it was more about hanging out and doing cool stuff than medals, money and winning are now building franchises that organizers say are selling as part of eight-figure transactions.
The debut of the new team concept, scheduled to cover both the upcoming summer and winter seasons, is set for Friday in Sacramento, California. Among the headliners are skateboarding's Nyjah Huston, Garrett Reynolds and Chloe Covell.
Eileen Gu, Chloe Kim, Mark McMorris and Scotty James are among those signed up for the winter portion.
"I love working on big ideas, and this is a big idea," said Jeremy Bloom, the Olympic freestyle skier and former NFL receiver who was hired by MSP Sports Capital shortly after they bought a majority stake in the X Games from ESPN in 2022. "But ideas are only worth the word on the page. The execution of ideas is always the hardest part."
What was wrong with the X Games? Nothing, really.
The winter version, traditionally held in Aspen, Colorado, drew 50,000 fans this year and ratings on ESPN and ABC rose 48%.
But when MSP — which has stakes in F1, and Premier League soccer teams among its investments — bought the property in 2022, it had a bigger vision.
It wanted to build a season-long race for a title. The way to do that was by creating summer and winter teams that hold drafts. Both seasons will run over three events — for instance, the summer league will go to Tokyo and New Orleans after the debut in Sacramento; the final event takes place late next month.
Earlier this year, the investment group UNA Sports Group bought the summer and winter teams based in New York for what the X Games said was an eight-figure transaction. Private equity investor Allen Thorpe bought the summer team in Los Angeles and the winter team based in Park City, Utah, the home of the 2034 Olympics. On Thursday, private equity group Summit Ventures and entrepreneur Ali El Ali bought the team based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Thorpe called the new version of the X Games "an entirely new category of sports ownership."
Bloom sees owning a franchise not as a revenue stream but rather, a growth opportunity.
"When you set aside the NFL, which is really the 2,000-pound gorilla, it's not really a world where you're looking for, like, (cash-flow) return or profit-sharing return," Bloom said. "You're just looking at growth. Growth in a brand, growth in fans, growth of viewership."
A best-case scenario for owners of these X Games teams might be to replicate what happened in the WNBA where, for instance, the Indiana Fever is worth an estimated five times its former value since the arrival of Caitlin Clark.
F1 teams, thanks to spending caps and a surge in popularity driven by the Netflix series "Drive to Survive," have also enjoyed a surge in value.
UNA, which bought the New York franchises, made the decision partly based on a study it published that projected the value of the global action sports market at $650 billion in 2027.
"Action sports today look remarkably like women's basketball did five years ago or women's soccer eight years ago: passionate participants, a loyal core audience, strong brand equity in the category leader, and a fragmented competitive landscape with no dominant league format," the paper said in detailing the strength of the league idea.
The paper made no mention of lessons learned from LIV Golf.
The league always hoped its franchises would generate value and was trying to sell minority stakes in the teams, saying they were worth $300 million. The team concept hasn't caught on and the pullout of the Saudi investment fund backing the league is putting the worth of those teams at risk.
While golf still resides in the category of a niche sport, its schedule has a familiar cadence and the tug between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf largely was a difference in vision among some players who were rich and others who were richer.
Action sports has less of that. For every athlete like Huston or Gu — whose sponsorship income dwarfs what they've collected in prize money over the years — there are dozens more who have to scratch out paychecks in sports that have struggled to generate big prize pools.
"Skateboarding, depending on what your deals are, you can make some money," said Bob Burnquist, a 14-time X Games skateboard champ who is the general manager of the Sao Paulo team. "But there were several times throughout your career, where I was there for glory and I did it and I knew it. Because if you quantify the risk, it's not really on my side. If I won the event, I'd make 'X,' but if I got broken trying to win the event, I'd owe the hospital."
One of the lures for the athletes was a guaranteed base salary, the likes of which is basically unheard of in actions sports. Also, travel expenses will be covered and they'll receive a health-care stipend, in addition to a prize-money pool. That's among the reasons some of the biggest names, including Kim, Gu, Huston, James and McMorris signed on.
Now, the question is whether enough people will buy into the team concept to the point where they're willing to watch an entire season of action sports unfold.
Bloom — a once-in-a-generation athlete and entrepreneur who made his mark both in individual and team sports — is staking his reputation and that of the X Games that the new idea will work.
"It's still special to win a world championship and World Cup overall titles and make it to the Olympics, there's no doubt," Bloom said. "But I was really drawn to this idea and notion that for the first time ever, action sports athletes could feel that camaraderie."
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
