There are no new events this year for the 23rd annual X Games Aspen, like last year’s addition of the women’s knuckle huck. However, this year’s games are going to see several other changes.
X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom says the games are moving from rebellious counter culture to more mainstream, including the introduction of paid tickets, sports betting and an X Games League set to have its first draft picks at the end of this year.
“If I had to sort of characterize where I think we are going here at the X Games… is building a culture of experimentation at X Games, trying out new things and formats,” Bloom said. “Whatever we can do to bring the most amount of eyeballs to the world’s best athletes, because what they can do no one else can do in the world.”
He goes on to say, “I think there’s an opening for us to rethink and reimagine what X Games is in this new chapter and that’s from everything to technology to sports expansion to what other sports we can add to winter and summer.”
The new league will be the biggest and first action sports league the world has ever seen. During this year’s X Games, Bloom said fans will also be able to bet for the first time ever on platforms like FanDuel, Bet 360 and DraftKings.
While this may be the new norm for die hard X games fans, action sports journalist and host Selema Masekela remembers his time in Aspen and the people that call the city home.
“It was pretty clear when we got to Aspen, ‘oh we are home.’ You know the way this city, especially the locals, opened up and said this is your home and made all the athletes feel super welcome,” he said. “Of all the action sports events, in all the years that I’ve done, there’s never been a better host city than Aspen and it’s particularly because of the people who live here.“
Colorado Public Radio reported that the X Games will also begin its first experiment with artificial intelligence on Thursday. AI judges will judge and commentate on snowboarders' halfpipe runs. Its metrics will not decide any event outcomes, as this year is just a test. Bloom teamed with Google founder Sergey Brin to develop the technology. Bloom says the experiment has potential to fundamentally change how all judged events, like figure skating, are scored.
However, some things will hopefully always stay the same: like the scrape of skis on rails, the screams from crowds cheering on their favorite snowboarder and the whir of a snowmobile whizzing by carrying an athlete to the top of the halfpipe.