After getting the green light from ESPN's innovative management team, Semiao set about assembling a team of the top event and production personnel, choosing a host site, and targeting the sport organizing bodies who would be responsible for selecting the extreme athletes. In theory, the event would be held every other year.

Jack Wienert was selected as Executive Director of the Extreme Games and was charged with the monstrous task of staging 27 events in nine sports categories. Invitations were accepted by about 350 athletes from all over the world. The 1995 Extreme Games included: Bungy Jumping, Barefoot Waterski Jumping, Kite Skiing, Windsurfing, Skysurfing, Bicycle Stunt Riding, Mountain Biking, Street Luge, Skateboarding and the Eco-Challenge.

On the television end, Coordinating Producer, Rich Feinberg, was selected to head the production team that would deliver into the homes of millions of viewers the largest gathering of extreme athletes ever. In all, ESPN and ESPN2 broadcast 50 hours of action plus an additional 25 to 30 repeat hours. In terms of sheer manpower and technology, the 1995 Extreme Games was the largest event production in ESPN's history. One of the main challenges was the actual site selected to serve as host position and broadcast center: Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island "ESPN came in and built a city, " said Feinberg. "It's a 1 7th century fort, and we have NYNEXfiber optic lines running through it. Approximately three hundred personnel - between production, technical, and vendor staffs - lived in the city for a week. " Fort Adams came equipped with no electricity, no running water, and no phone lines.

Newport and Providence, Rhode Island were selected to host the Games because of "the contrast between Newport's traditional appeal - mansions, old money, America's Cup - and its summer reputation as a party town, " according to Ron Semiao. The same with Providence, "I loved the fact that the downhill (in-line and luge) course would pass by an Ivy League school (Brown University). It gave everything an edge, made it sex~ and exciting, " he added.

Approximately 115 cameras were used. There were helmet cams, dirt jump cams, point-of-view cameras mounted on top of the climbing wall and half-pipe. There were even cameras mounted on the wheels of skateboards and street luge sleds. Heart-rate monitors were hooked up to bungy jumpers and huge Sony Jumbotrons enabled the 133,000 spectators to see everything that was happening in the air and on ground.

Ultimately, the programming earned a prime-time live rating of 1.1 or 720,000 households per telecast and was nominated for more Sports Emmy awards than any other ESPN broadcast. The announcement was made during the Extreme Games that the Games would be held again, but instead of every other year as planned, they would be held the very next year. Also, within months, the name of the event was changed to the X Games - primarily to separate the event from the rapidly expanding field of extreme sports and to help facilitate international translation.

The 1996 X Games left Fort Adams State Park and moved to downtown Newport, to the Newport Yachting Center. The host position and broadcast center moved to Providence, as did the bicycle dirt jumping. In addition, a few sports were dropped from the X Games: Kite Skiing, Windsurfing and Mountain Biking. The Eco-Challenge, a trademarked adventure race, was changed to an ESPN-organized race call the Extreme Adventure Race. We also added the hottest new water sport, Wakeboarding.

With a more streamlined broadcast schedule that included more than 35 original hours of programming, the X Games once again attracted more than 700,000 households per ESPN telecast. Subsequent research showed that the X Games has become the most watched sporting event by males between the age of 12-34 with 50 viewers per 100 households. Only the National Hockey League telecasts on Fox come close to that viewership within that demographic.

During the X Games in Newport, Rhode Island, ESPN announced the Winter X Games at Snow Summit Mountain Resort in Big Bear Lake, CA. Between January 30 and February 2, 1997, over 160 of the world's best winter alternative sport athletes will display their talents in Snowboarding, Ice Climbing, Super-Modified Shovel Racing and Snow Mountain Bike Racing, as well as a Cross-Over event that combines slopestyle snowboarding and dryland half-pipe. ESPN and ESPN2, as well as ABC's Wide World of Sports, will televise 16.5 hours of original programming.

Just weeks after the 1996 X Games, ESPN announced that the 1997 X Games would be held June 21 to June 28 in San Diego, CA.. In September the organizing staff moved to San Diego, and now organizes both Winter and Summer events from that of fice. The X Games in San Diego will not include Bungy Jumping, and will add a Cross-Over event that will feature a 100-foot tall snowboarding Big-Air jump.

Additional tours and events involving the X Games have emerged. In 1996, a sponsor-driven extreme sports and music expo called the X Games Road Show visited twelve cities. This year the Road Show will be called the Xtreme Xperience, and will visit ten cities. In 1996, six cities were treated to Destination Extreme, a competition involving bicycle stunt riders, skateboarders and in-line skaters. This year the events will be called the XTrials, and will also visit several cities. 1996 also saw two international X Games exhibitions in Brazil and Thailand, with more planned for 1997.

According to Executive Director Jack Wienert, "Who knows what we'll come up with next. We 've grown immensely in just two short years, but we 've managed to maintain the whole ideal of the X Games. We'll grow even more with our move to San Diego and ESPN's acquisition by Disney, but we'11 always strive to maintain the original ideal set forth by Ron Semiao of providing the ultimate showcase foralternativesport athletes."

[ X - GAMES INDEX ]