The annual Winter X Games is undoubtedly the biggest extravaganza of winter sports, second only to the World Championship and the Winter Olympics. This statement echoed on January 21 when the official X Games handle posted that they’ve sold out all the tickets. “World class athletes (handshake emoji) world class fans #XGamesAspen 2025 is officially SOLD OUT!” they wrote.

“We may not have any tickets left, but you can watch live and free globally,” the post read. One thing that contributes to the hype is the Games’ iconic venue, the Buttermilk Ski Resort in Aspen.  Yet despite the apparent popularity and success on the surface, issues have been brewing in the background that may ensure that 2025 is the final time the event takes place in Aspen.

From boosting the economy to becoming a growing burden

New CEO Jeremy Bloom made the disheartening statement over a Zoom call interview with the Aspen Daily News in the second week of January. “We have 35 official bids from around the world, both winter and summer. Aspen is not one of them. So we have work to do…” Bloom told the local news source. Yet this wasn’t always the case, as the X Games once provided the city with a huge boost.

An Aspen Daily News report from 2006 showed the event, which ran from January 27 to 31, 2006, had a “$3.4 million economic impact on Aspen.” They explained that throughout the entire week, the daily retail sales showed a spike of $374,845. And this wasn’t even close to being the whole story. Paul Menter, the city’s finance director, revealed the whole picture.

“These are statistically invalid,” said the finance director, citing that many stores failed to report the sales of different kinds of apparel. They estimated that the total retail sales for January 2006 would land around $50 million, with the X Games contributing to 6.7% of those sales. Menter said, “Even if you cut that in half “ it would be a “significant number.”  However, things have gone downhill.

While Aspen has been a financial contributor to the X Games for nearly two decades, those contributions have now reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. Last year, the Aspen City Council provided the S Games with $187,000 in financial support. Meanwhile, the Pitkin County Elected Officials Transportation Committee added another $115,000 to that number for transportation, as per the Aspen Times.

Unfortunately, another issue with the X Games is the timing. Every year, there’s barely any gap between the Games and the World Cup. Aspen has been playing host to FIS Ski World Cup events since the 1950s, and they aren’t going away. The result? The city incurs even more costs. Besides contributing to the X Games, the city council approved another $278,000 in cash and kind to host the 2024 Ski World Cup event at Aspen.

The financial woes don’t just end there, as City Manager Sara Ott revealed that even long-term parking services cost the city an extra $8,000 compared to 2023. Naturally, the increasing costs and bad timing have jeopardized the future of the X Games in Aspen.

Does the X Games problem have a solution?

So the question is, what are the people on both sides of the table going to do about this problem? Thankfully, the situation is being discussed among the city officials, while the new X Games CEO plans to revolutionize the event moving forward. The former Olympian turned CEO is passionate not just about the legacy of the event but the venue as well.

“We’re having those conversations now. We have a new model for X Games and it’s hard sometimes to embrace a new model when you’ve sort of had the same model for 27 years or so, but it is my goal to figure out a way to keep Winter X Games in Aspen because I just think it’s absolutely iconic,” Bloom told the Aspen News Daily. So what’s Blooom’s solution?

The new CEO hopes to make the X Games more “mainstream,” breaking the ‘action sports’ image for both the Games and the athletes who participate. “We don’t think of them just as action sports athletes,” said Bloom, and that’s the perspective that the CEO hoping to make everyone else adopt. Drawing the X Games out of its niche image is a top priority.

Garnering even larger audience and mainstream fan base nearly guarantees a boost to the revenues. This may in turn end up easing the pressure from the Aspen City Council, who won’t have to contribute such large sums of money just to host the event smoothly. Bloom is also trying to adopt a league-based format for the event, with 10-athlete teams selected via drafts.

This would once again boost the reach and scope of the X Games beyond the now nearly three-decade-old model. However, the new CEO isn’t the only one pushing for changes for the Games to stay in Aspen. While the city council couldn’t come to a solution in 2024, Mayor Torre expressed his interest in solving the issue.

“I think as we look towards next year, we should open that dialogue up sooner than later,” said the Mayor as per The Aspen Times. So if Jeremy Bloom is to be believed, then talks are underway to keep the iconic athltes coming back to the iconic venue. However, it’s difficult to say if those talks will result in a concrete solution before the 2026 X Games draw near. So don’t be surprised if the Games do return to Aspen, Colorado, following this year’s event.