Yesterday I told you why I hated the X Games.

Today, in a somewhat Jekyll and Hyde moment, I’ll play the other role and discuss why I love the X Games as a marketing tool for skiing.

#1 Stokes Non-Skiers
If I had to choose between not-stoking non-skiers and stoking non-skiers, I stoke non-skiers even if perhaps the stoke isn’t of the most effective variety.

Plus, I love the scale of the stoke. Sure, many of the viewers are skiers, but a boatload of them aren’t and are simply drawn by high stakes drama on a mountain with a brand like Aspen’s.

#2 Live Conversation
During the whole “Gangham Style” fiasco, I noticed a surprising thing happen. Or rather, not happen. Now, my watchfulness of the left column on Twitter wasn’t perfect, but I never saw Gangham Style trending.

Think about that, a billion people watched that song but the real-time conversation was never high enough to show up in my trending list because only a small group were watching it an any given time.

What I love about the X Games is that it synchronizes the stoke and discussion on skiing so this topic can rise to the top. This rarely happens in our sport.

#3 Competition and Achievement
I’ve briefly covered this before, but skiing is at a large disadvantage to other sports because we lack common, well branded accomplishments like marathons are to jogging.

The X Games bring the drama and appeal of competition as well as the motivation of achievement to skiing in a way that appeals to a vastly different crowd than the more traditional skiing events do during the Olympics. The more kids have something to dream of, “I’m gonna win the X Games one day!”, the more stoke will be generated.

Overall
Overall, like I mentioned at the top, I’d rather have X Games stoke than no stoke at all.

But as we approach another extreme rendition of skiing on a mass stage, I can’t help but ask once again how we are going to make beginner and intermediate skiing sexy.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.