In its 10th iteration, ESPN’s alternative-sports competition skated to record viewership levels.
Covering 18 hours -- 14 of them live -- across a variety of dayparts on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 from Aug. 5-8, X Games X from Los Angeles averaged 996.1 million households, according to Nielsen Media Research data. That represented a 47% jump from X Games IX’s average of 676,357 households.
The event also played well among key young demos: The competition was the most-watched X Games ever among people 12-14 (up 25% from 2003) and males 12-24 (an 18% increase), according to company officials.
Looking ahead, ESPN has not yet made the call on where the next X Games competition will be held. Published reports indicated that Boston and Miami have expressed interest in hosting the event.
An ESPN spokeswoman called this year’s competition “the best ever. L.A. was a huge success. Traditionally, we have rotated the competition every two years. We’re undecided at this point, but we would explore interest, if any, from other cities.”
