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The Life of X: A Brief History of the Games
The San Francisco X Games will be the 6th annual X Games. Along the way ESPN has added the Winter X Games, the X Trials, the Asian X Games, the Xperience and much more. Here's a brief timeline on how the X Games has arrived as the world's signature multi-alternative sport event.
1993ESPN Management decides to devote significant resources to the creation of an international gathering of alternative sport athletes. A team is assembled to develop the concept that originated in the ESPN Programming Department. 1994 At a press conference at Planet Hollywood in New York City on April 12, ESPN announces that the first Extreme Games will be held in Rhode Island in late June of 1995.
1995 198,000 Spectators attended the first Extreme Games, and the event was sponsored by seven companies, including Advil, Mountain Dew, Taco Bell, Chevy Trucks, AT&T, Nike and Miller Lite Ice. ESPN decides to hold the event the following year, based on the success perceived by the athletes, organizers, spectators, producers and sponsors. The decision is made in October to hold the event in Rhode Island for the second year, based on the 1995's successes.
1996 The X Games Road Show, a two-day touring interactive expo, makes its debut in April - eventually reaching twelve cities including Boston, San Francisco and Miami. In early June the X Games' first international exhibition takes place. In the shadow of ancient temples in Shanghai, exhibitions are performed in bicycle stunt, in-line skating and skateboarding. In late June approximately 200,000 spectators turn out for the X Games. Kiteskiing, windsurfing and mountain biking are all replaced with wakeboarding, while ESPN Sportszone reported live on the internet from Newport, RI. The site of the first-ever ESPN Winter X Games is announced at a press conference on June 30. Snow Summit Mountain Resort in Big Bear Lake, Calif., is named the site for competitions in snowboarding, ice climbing, snow mountain bike racing, shovel racing and a crossover multi-sport. ESPN announces in July that the X Games will be moving to San Diego, Calif. for the 1997 and 1998 X Games.
1997 In March the X Trials, a qualifying event for the X Games, holds its first contest in Providence, RI. A similar X Trials was also held one month later in Orlanda, Fla.. From June 20 through June 28, a record crowd of 221,000 fans watches in San Diego and Oceanside as the third annual X Games continues to impress. Big Air snowboarding replaces bungy jumping and amazes San Diegans with a 10-story jump on the beach. In September ESPN announced that the host of the 1998 Winter X Games will be Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Crested Butte, Colorado. New sports to the Winter X Games include freeskiing, snowmobile snocross and skiboarding. Also in September, the X Games Xperience is held at Disneyland Paris, France. The event was held in conjunction with Eurosport. In December, citing overwhelming success, the X Games are officially invited back to San Diego for 1998 by Mayor Susan Golding.
1998 In April, the first-ever international X Games qualifying event is held. The Asian X Games features 200 athletes from the Pacific Rim competing in Phuket, Thailand for a limited amount of spots in the San Diego X Games. In May, the second year of XTrials competition begins. The 1998 X Trials appear in St. Petersburg, FL, and Virginia Beach, VA, and continue to verify the belief that interest in alternative sports is growing rapidly across the country. In June the X Games tops its attendance mark for the fourth consecutive year. More than 233,000 spectators flock to Mariner's Point in San Diego for the fourth annual X Games. In September, ESPN announces that the X Games will move to San Francisco for the years 1999 and 2000. In October, ESPN establishes their office on Treasure Island in San Francisco.
1999 In late April and early May, the third year of qualifying events called the X trials take place in Louisville, Kentucky and Richmond, Virginia. Crowds top 30,000 for the four-day events, with the promotional tour, the Xperience, taking place in conjunction with the competitions. On May 8, ESPN announces that the 2000 and 2001 Winter X Games will take place in Mount Snow, Vermont. From June 27 - July 4, the X Games in San Francisco attracts nearly 275,000 spectators - who were treated to Tony Hawk's first-ever skateboarding 900 and the X Games debut of MotoX.
2000 From March through June, the ESPN B3 and X Trials events took place across the country, qualifying athletes to compete in the 2000 X Games in San Francisco, CA. Beginning in Lake Havasu, AZ, re-visiting Louisville KY, and St. Petersburg FL, ending in Nashville TN, ESPN's B3 and X Trials events were the most successful to-date and wrapped up the Road to X.. The 2000 X Games will once again bring together more than 350 of the world's best alternative sport athletes in San Francisco, Calif. to compete for nearly 1 million in prize money and medals. The 2000 X Games will take place August 17th - 22nd in San Francisco, Calif. on Piers 30/32.  Send this story to a friend
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From January 30 through February 2 the inaugural Winter X Games are broadcast to 198 countries in 21 different languages. More than 38,000 spectators make the trek to Big Bear Lake for four days of 70 degree competition.
25,000 spectators gathered over four days in January in Crested Butte, Colo. for the second annual Winter X Games.
Crested Butte is the site once again for the third annual Winter X Games. More than 30,000 attend the event in January, which featured more disciplines, including women's freeskiing, yet no new sports.
The Winter X Games took place February 3rd - 6th in Mount Snow, Vermont. The first Winter X of the millennium featured the largest crowds to-date and the first appearance of the event on the East Coast. With the new Snowboarding Superpipe competition throw into the mix of favorites such as Snowboarding Big Air, SnowboarderX and Slopestyle, FreeSkiing, Skiboarding, Snocross, and Snow Mountain Bike Racing; the 2000 Winter X Games drew over 83,500 spectators to this small Southern Vermont town.
