X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom Kicks Off New Era in Action Sports

ESPN developed the X Games concept in the early 1990s, holding the inaugural event in Rhode Island in 1995 before branching into summer and winter editions. The Winter X Games has strong ties to Colorado; it moved to Aspen in 2002, where it's been held ever since. The latest edition is set for January 23-25 at Buttermilk Mountain.

While the location may stay the same, the brand has gone through some changes, with the majority stake sold by ESPN to a New York-based private equity firm, MSP Sports Capital, in 2022. In December, that new owner selected Jeremy Bloom as CEO to guide the X Games into the future.

Bloom, a Colorado native, has had a long and successful career in traditional and action sports; as a freestyle skier, he's a three-time world champion, two-time Olympian and eleven-time World Cup gold medalist. An All-American wide receiver at the University of Colorado, he also played professional football: He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles and spent three seasons in the NFL.

After his playing days concluded in 2008, Bloom ventured into the business world, founding the tech company Integrate and building it from scratch to a valuation of just under a billion dollars. He sold that company in 2021.

In 2024, Jahm Najafi, partner and chair of MSP Sports, approached Bloom with his vision for expanding the X Games from two annual events to eight per year, with competitions taking place all over the world. It would become a full-action sports league that would incorporate successful characteristics of both the NFL and NBA.

Once Bloom heard Najafi’s concept, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

“It just kept eating at me and eating at me, and I just became more and more excited about the idea of turning X Games into a league,” Bloom recalls. “And so ultimately, at the ninth hour, right before I signed an offer letter to move to New York and run this [other] company, we came to terms.”

Bloom saw the chance to build the largest platform in action sports, one that would get the most eyeballs and commercial opportunities so that athletes could focus primarily on competing.

“I sat in their shoes. You know, I know the struggle,” Bloom says. “I know a lot of them have to work second jobs and those types of things just to do the thing that they love. They're not all superheroes, but they all aspire to get there.”

Bloom has studied the success of Formula 1 and LIV Golf, and how the WNBA has been able to market stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese into heroes and villains. He hopes to replicate those strategies.

“Look, we want to build as many heroes as we can,” Bloom says. “And we don't mind a couple villains along the way, because we think that creates some compelling content. And I think just by natural extension, as you move from an individual sport to team sport...we'll see some of that stuff organically grow.”

With an eye to the thirtieth anniversary of the X Games this year, Bloom wants to start transitioning into a league in 2026. He'd like to launch the league with four teams representing both winter and summer action sports, but also experiment with the format — changing how the events are broadcast, venturing into sports betting and fantasy, and incorporating a points system. He’s keen on adding more action sports to the lineup, provided they have a large fan following and a strong roster of sponsors.

But while the X Games will evolve, Bloom says that they'll still be rooted in celebrating individual accomplishments.

“Now, we're not going to fully get away from the individual aspect of X Games,” he notes. ”We're still going to crown individual champions at all of our stops. So if you're the superpipe champion, you're the X Games gold medalist and you get to celebrate in that.”

According to Bloom, kids today view action sports as a showcase for athletes performing incredible displays of skill and athleticism instead of rebelling against the establishment. “If you ask a fourteen-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, what X Games is today, they just say it's awesome sports,” he says. “Like, they're doing these amazing things. So I think there's probably an opportunity for us to evolve the word 'action' into other things. I mean, I certainly watched the UFC and think  that's an action sport. I watch American Ninja Warrior and I'm like, wow, these are action sports sort of stars. And so we're going to be really curious to explore and experiment with opening the aperture a bit to what could potentially fall into X Games and be sort of described as potentially an action sport.”

But Bloom doesn't just want to expand the popularity of the X Games. He also wants to work with the communities where the events are held by building skateparks and superpipes and partnering with schools to deepen the connection between athletes and fans. And he wants to watch out for those athletes.

“At the end of the day, I'm here because of the athletes, to best support the best athletes in the world — you know, cross-action sports and BMX and skateboarding and Moto X and snowboarding and skiing,” Bloom says. “And I love these guys and these gals. And I want to do everything we can as an organization to support them.”

X Games returns to Buttermilk in Aspen January 23-25; find info at xgames.com.