New X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom shares vision of event’s future and where Aspen fits in

Jeremy Bloom has a lot to learn as the new CEO of X Games, but with a veteran supporting cast around him, the nerves should be minimal.

If anything, the butterflies will be for the future and building out his vision of the action sports brand.

“I wake up every day excited and go to bed excited,” Bloom said last week in an exclusive interview with The Aspen Times. “I would say I’m here first and foremost for these athletes — the world’s best athletes. I’ve lived in their shoes, I know what they go through, I know the struggle. … We owe them the biggest and best platform, globally, to share the brilliance of who they are and what they do. That’s our mission.”

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Bloom, 42, the former University of Colorado football player and famed freestyle skier, was named CEO of X Games in December. He grew up in Loveland and learned to ski at Keystone. Originally an Alpine skier, he transitioned to moguls skiing and became one of the best the sport has ever seen. A member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, Bloom’s resume includes 26 World Cup podiums, 12 World Cup wins, two Olympic teams, and three World Cup titles. He’s a three-time world champion.

Bloom was also a star returner for the CU football team and had a short-lived career in the National Football League with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles, retiring in 2009.

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MSP Sports Capital is the current owner of X Games, having purchased a majority stake in the brand from ESPN in October 2022. X Games Aspen returns Thursday and runs through Saturday at Buttermilk Ski Area.

“You can take the guy out of sports, but you can’t take sports out of the guy. That’s probably the headline for me,” Bloom said. “When I left athletics 13 years ago and got into tech, I sort of fell in love with tech. And I thought that I’d be in tech my whole life. And when I found this opportunity to find the intersection between private equity and sports — gosh, what a dream.”

Bloom in 2010 co-founded the B2B enterprise software company Integrate, where he served as CEO even after the company was acquired by Audax Private Equity in 2022. He stepped down from that role to serve as X Games CEO.

X Games won’t look much different this week, as it will be business as usual in terms of athletes and competitions. But 2026 could look a lot different, according to Bloom, with big changes in the works for the brand.

“We have mainstream visions. We think these are the world’s best athletes,” Bloom said. “We are here because we want to give these athletes the platform they deserve, globally. We want to bring more commercial opportunities for these athletes. We want to bring more eyeballs.”

X Games is working on a new media rights deal beginning in 2026, with that announcement expected sooner than later. Beginning next year, Bloom said X Games will have an eight-city tour — four winter and four summer stops — and will incorporate a new “X Games League” with teams vying for points.

That said, the individual aspect of winning a superpipe or slopestyle contest will remain.

“We will be experimenting with a lot of things as we build out,” Bloom said. “There is going to be the world’s first action sports draft at the end of this year. We are selling those teams, so private equity is buying a team and high net worth individuals are buying teams. And at that draft, they will draft 10 players each — five female, five male — across winter and summer. The goal will be to assemble a team of athletes that can get on the podium the most.”

So, what is Aspen’s role going forward? Bloom said he hopes the city continues to be at the epicenter of Winter X Games, where Buttermilk has been the primary host since 2002. Dreams aside, nothing has yet been put to paper, but Bloom was hopeful something would be worked out.

“I hope they play a big role, (but) that can’t unfortunately be guaranteed at this moment,” he said of Aspen. “We have 35 cities around the world who have submitted official bids to bring X Games League to their city, everywhere from Bali, Indonesia, to St. Moritz, Switzerland, to a bunch of places in North America.

“And we’ll announce our eight cities shortly, but we are still having conversations with Aspen about what that could look like,” he continued. “Winter X Games, it’s hard to imagine … it not going through Aspen. I really hope we can put together a deal to keep it there, because it’s a really special place.”

This story is from AspenTimes.com