‘X Games’ Has A New Look, And Goes All-In On AI Judging And Sports Betting (Exclusive)

The X Games has a new look. After 30 years as the undisputed pinnacle of action sports, the iconic brand is shedding its old skin for a fresh, modern identity. But this is more than just a cosmetic update. The new logo serves as a visual marker for a much deeper, more radical transformation that will propel the X Games into the future by putting its athletes and the integrity of its competitions front and center.

And it’s going to accomplish that by going all-in on AI-judging to keep competition fair and sports betting to keep fans engaged.

Let’s start with some X Games backstory…

For 30 years, X Games has been the pinnacle of action sports. Full stop. For athletes who lived and breathed skateboarding, snowboarding, and BMX, it was circled on the calendar as the one event that truly mattered. It’s where big air became memes in a pre-social media era and endorsement fortunes for athletes were mined.

Created by ESPN in 1995 to capture a burgeoning sports counterculture movement, the network took what was once a niche collection of ballsy pursuits, such as SuperPipe, vert skating, and motocross, and broadcast it into living rooms worldwide, making it a cultural force that launched icons and defined youth culture for a generation.

But as it hits a milestone anniversary, the brand isn’t just looking back. It’s rocketing forward under its new ownership, MSP Sports Capital, a New York-based private equity firm that purchased the majority stake from ESPN in 2022.

Under the leadership of CEO and former Olympian Jeremy Bloom, X Games is undergoing its most radical evolution yet: A rebrand and logo change to bring purpose-built not just for the next generation of fans, but for a new era of sport itself.

Watching the X Games on TV, mainlining energy drinks on your couch, is one thing. Actually being there is an entirely different beast. I’ve had the privilege of going to the Winter X Games in Aspen twice, and it is a special kind of three-ring circus on the snow. The entire winter action sports world descends on one tiny, freezing mountain town for a week-long party in sub-zero temps. The spectacle of watching these athletes defy physics in person, with a hyped-up crowd and bass-thumping music cutting through the cold, is an experience that TV just can’t capture. When someone nails their signature trick, the crowd’s stoke at X Games is deafening.

Embracing AI judging, with human judges making the final call…

That electric atmosphere is precisely what has fueled some of the most legendary — and debated — moments in sports history.  The history of action sports is written in X Games moments that have become cultural hallmarks, yet many are still debated within the action sports community today. These were the ultimate “go big or go home” performances: Tony Hawk finally landing the first-ever 900 in 1999, a feat that felt impossible until it happened; Travis Pastrana’s groundbreaking double backflip on a motorcycle in 2006, a historic feat the judges somehow didn’t score as perfect; even Shaun White’s perfect 100 in the 2012 SuperPipe.

These star-making moments transcended sports, but they always sparked the same heated discussion: judging. Action sports aren’t scored with a stopwatch; they’re a complex blend of raw difficulty and personal style. This subjectivity has often led to questionable calls and the lingering suspicion that an athlete’s reputation may take precedence over their performance. It boils down to a central tension: how do you objectively score an art form?

That’s the question X Games is now trying to answer. To solve this issue, Bloom’s team is leveraging groundbreaking AI-powered judging from Owl AI, a sports intelligence platform spun out of the X Games itself, which received $11 million in funding over the summer. The aim is to remove human bias from competition entirely. Bloom tells BroBible:

“Conscious and unconscious bias is pervasive across all sports… One of the a potential opportunities is to leverage AI to create objectivity in these subjective sports. This drive towards creating more fairness and removing bias from judges is really important to athletes, and ultimately, important to the fans.”

And before you get too worked up about it, please know that humans are still making the final call on the X Games scores. The AI is just for completely objective measurements of the performance, like vertical, air time, tricks, and number of rotations.

X Games and sports betting?

But creating a fairer competition is only half the battle. To truly elevate the platform for athletes, X Games is also opening another front in its push for modernization by embracing the massive, and sometimes controversial, world of sports betting. Bloom says:

“What our athletes want is the biggest stage to have the most amount of influence… In order to deliver that at X Games, we have to lean into these trends. And the evidence is really clear that sports betting helps to broaden the appeal of various sports.”

Perhaps the most ambitious part of this evolution, however, is a complete reimagining of the competitive structure itself. According to an official press release on the rebrand, “At the heart of this transformation is the X Games League, the first-ever year-round, team-based league in action sports, launching in the summer of 2026. The league represents a fundamental shift in how fans experience action sports—blending team rivalries, individual glory, and new revenue streams for athletes.”

These initiatives — the technological fairness, new commercial ventures, and a league structure — represent a multi-pronged strategy to purpose-build X Games for the next 30 years.

To get the inside story on the new logo and this ambitious new chapter for X Games, I jumped on a Zoom with Bloom so he could explain it in his own words.

Note: The conversation has been edited for clarity. 

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BroBible: Jeremy, thanks for taking the time. The X Games is an iconic franchise hitting its 30th anniversary, and a big, exciting rebrand is on the horizon. Can you talk us through this pivotal moment and the new direction for the brand?

Jeremy Bloom: For sure. Well, thanks for taking some time as well, and thanks for covering X Games and our athletes. As you know, it’s a 30-year-old brand. What was once invented as the Extreme Games turned into the X Games, and that was the first logo evolution, if you will. Thirty years later, with all the changes that we’re working on, we thought it was a great opportunity to evolve the look and feeling of how the brand showed up.

When we started thinking about our Northern Star and under what lens we wanted to think about this rebrand, we really focused on the athlete. We said, “Really, this is an athlete-driven brand.” The athletes have built this brand. The athletes have sacrificed their young adult life to be the best in the world. The athletes put their bodies at risk to do the incredible things that they do at X Games—on the snow, on a skateboard, or a BMX bike. That was really our Northern Star in designing this new look and feel.

What we’re so thrilled with is how we can leverage this new ‘X’ to put the athlete out in front. X Games sits in the background where we should be. On the main stage is the athlete, and we’re, of course, the enabler. We’re the platform. It’s our responsibility to give the athletes the biggest stage possible and the most opportunities. That’s what I think we’re most proud of. This new look, this new feeling, is really all about the athlete. Now the X Games brand can sit in the background and support these incredible athletes in these incredible moments.

The cultural landscape has shifted so much, with a huge focus on individual personalities thanks to social media. X Games has always been more than an event; it’s an IP that has shaped youth culture, bringing together sports, music, and art. Beyond the new logo, you’re looking to modernize the entire X Games experience. Can you walk us through what that looks like?

It’s an awesome responsibility to run and lead the most iconic action sports brand in the world—and you could argue one of the most iconic sports brands in the world. X Games hasn’t just shaped athletics; X Games is the reason that skateboarding, BMX, and snowboarding and skiing Big Air are in the Olympics. But it’s really even transcended sport into helping shape youth culture with all of our music, art, and culture at our events. I mean, Snoop Dogg pulls up and plays at X Games, Metallica… all the biggest names want to play at X Games. It’s a really cool responsibility for all of us to purpose-build this brand for the next 30 years.

Over the last 10 years, the way you consume your content has changed completely. We see it as our responsibility to meet the fan where they want to engage, not their responsibility to find us. So that’s part of the modernization. Let’s diversify the ways that we show up. Let’s not just show up on ESPN and ABC. Let’s also show up on Roku—and let’s remove the login on Roku so anyone can see it. Let’s also live-broadcast in other countries on YouTube, because we have athletes from 25 different nations, and some of them are amongst the biggest stars in those countries.

Another trend that is quite popular is sports betting. It makes the games more interesting for a lot of people and have more consequence, so we’ve introduced sports betting. We’re launching the world’s first action sports league in summer 2026 so that we can have year-round storytelling. Instead of one event, we’ll have multiple events. We’ll have a draft, just like the NFL Draft. We’re selling teams, bringing on new ownership groups, etc. So I think we’re really purposefully building this brand for this generation.

You mentioned the embrace of sports betting, which has become a massive, albeit sometimes controversial, part of the sports landscape. Given that X Games has traditionally appealed to a younger audience and action sports are so focused on the individual, can you talk through the decision to make sports betting a lane the X Games wants to embrace?

Again, thinking about the athletes: what our athletes want is the biggest stage to have the most amount of influence for the things that they do. That is priority number one. In order to deliver that at X Games, we have to lean into these trends. And the evidence is really clear: sports betting helps to broaden the appeal of various sports. There’s a whole cohort of sports fans that like to engage in sports that way, and if they can’t engage in sports that way, they’re less interested in paying attention.

So it’s not us pushing sports betting and saying that everybody should bet on our sports. It’s us opening up that channel and extending an olive branch to that community to say, “Listen, we’d love for you to be part of X Games, and if you would like to bet on these athletes or the outcomes, go for it.”

That being said, there are lots of rules and regulations. We’re regulated in 26 or 27 states. We’ve checked every box. We’re not the renegades out there just doing this on our own. We’ve partnered with companies like DraftKings and FanDuel to make sure it’s above board and we’re adhering to all of the rules. But what was a $400 million business in 2018 is now a $16 billion business just that many years later. Like the NFL and Major League Baseball, we can’t ignore those fans and lock those folks out from engaging in our sports the way they want to engage.

We’re seeing other major sporting events, like the US Open in tennis, thrive by becoming massive cultural experiences. You’ve mentioned similar plans for Aspen, up-leveling the hospitality and fan experience. How are you tapping into that trend?

It’s a great opportunity for us to elevate the fan experience and hospitality. You look at sports like F1, which has done a great job. A lot of people just go to stay in the paddock. People want to be there because there’s this FOMO moment. You’ve got to be there posting photos, and there’s high-end food and high-end experiences.

We have some of those similar plans for our Aspen event this year where we’re up-leveling our hospitality and the fan experience. We certainly want to tap into that trend, because we know that especially the high-end fan, which Aspen is a high-end market, wants those opportunities. But at the same time, we have a general admission ticket price that anybody can pay. You make it inclusive to all economic ranges, but absolutely make sure that that high-end consumer, or that CMO or that team owner, goes there and says, “Oh my god, I cannot wait to come back here next year.”

Beyond the high-end hospitality, there’s a real emphasis on ‘festival culture’ and positioning X Games on the cultural calendar in the same way as a major music festival. Can you speak to that integration of music and sport?

The integration of music into X Games is part of the reason why it became such an iconic brand. It wasn’t just these rebellious athletes that were doing the most crazy and spectacular things the world had ever seen. It was that the most culturally relevant musical artists were showing up and jamming with them. There was really authentic integration. It was like Kumbaya. It felt much more authentic than a music festival.

It’s still true to this day. Machine Gun Kelly reached out to us last year and said, “I want to come play for free because I got this new skateboarding song, and I’m just dying to debut it at X Games.” It’s so differentiated. And again, it’s credit to these athletes. They built that credibility through what they do on skis, snowboards, skateboards, BMX bikes, and motorcycles.

We just think there’s more room to run there, so we are doubling down on music. We’re going to announce our two headliners, I believe, the first week of October. We’re also going to have daytime music this year, which we haven’t had before. So we’re going to have daytime music and night music. It’s going to be one really big party vibe up there in Buttermilk this year, and we think the fans are going to love it.

Another fascinating technological advancement you’re introducing is AI judging. This has been a topic in the action sports world for a few years. Could you talk us through how it works and how you anticipate it will change the competitive experience?

It’s a good question. I’ll start with the “why” and then describe the “how.”

Look, conscious and unconscious bias is pervasive across all sports, whether it’s a referee making a judgment call on a late hit on Patrick Mahomes versus some quarterback you’ve never heard of. There’s studies about this. Is Shaun White’s perfect 100 a perfect 100, or was it because he was at the peak of his popularity? One of the potential opportunities, and I say potential because it’s such new technology, is to leverage AI to create objectivity in these subjective sports. We’ve really leaned into this idea, in the beginning with Google’s help, and have since spun the company out. It’s now its own separate company, the Owl AI, and it’s run by some of the absolute best minds in the field, including a CEO who previously served as the head of AI for Google Cloud. They’re working on this use case not just for X Games, but across lots of different sports.

The “how” is easier to show. The technology is trained to watch a run from a single camera feed. It can identify and name the trick, like a frontside 900, a backside 900, a tail grab, a mute grab, which is incredibly hard even for humans to do in real-time. It knows amplitude better than a human; it knows exactly if a rider was 22 feet out of the pipe or 21 and a half. It can gather all this data in an objective way, and it cares less about if the rider’s name is Chloe Kim or Eileen Gu or somebody you’ve never heard of. It can objectively say what the score is based on the degree of difficulty, the style, and the landing.

We’re continuing to build out this technology. We think it’ll show up in bigger ways this year in Aspen. It’ll contribute to battles, and it’ll sit amongst the humans, not replace them. But this drive towards creating more fairness and removing bias from judges is really important to athletes and, ultimately, to the fans.

That’s incredible. One of the classic debates in judging action sports is how to score ‘style’, that swagger or ‘it’ factor that goes beyond pure athleticism. When you introduce this level of objectivity, how does the AI account for style?

This was a big point of contention in the beginning. Even myself, and others, we said, “Could we possibly teach AI what good style is? What is good swagger?” So we spent hours unpacking what good style is. As an athlete who competed in a judged sport where style really mattered, I was in a unique position to contribute, but we also invited other X Games athletes and the head judge to be part of the team that built this.

And it turns out, you can actually describe what good style is. Typically, it means good economy of motion in the air. If an athlete jumps and they’re a little off-axis, they’ll put a hand up to get back on axis. That’s not good style. Good style is a perfect takeoff, so you’re effortless in the air. Another aspect: did they just touch the grab, or did they really tweak the grab? That shows control. We just started to unpack what swagger and good style was, and it turns out you can teach AI to look for those identifiers.

Ultimately, if you look back at 10 years of history in every single run, which we did, 99.9% of the time, the athlete that wins does the hardest tricks the cleanest, almost without exception. The athlete that does the big, stylish Daffy—it’s cool, fans love it, but they don’t win because the degree of difficulty is not big enough.

Now, I’m not talking Knuckle Huck. Knuckle Huck is a form of art. We don’t want AI to judge Knuckle Huck; we want the fans to judge it, because that is a form of art. But when you’re talking about the hardcore Olympic sports, the athlete doing the hardest tricks with the most air, the cleanest—that athlete, almost without exception, wins.