A record number of fans consumed the extensive Winter X Games 13 content featured across ESPN’s many global ESPN and ABC distribution platforms, including television, Internet and more. The unprecedented multimedia offerings provided complete coverage of the world’s leading winter action sports competition, held January 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado, to fans everywhere. An announcement was made during the event that the Winter X Games will remain in Aspen / Snowmass until 2012.
“Once again the Winter X Games delivered the best in action sports to fans worldwide,” said Rick Alessandri, senior vice president, X Games Franchise. “The continued growth across all our multi-media properties is a testament to the passion, athleticism and drama the X Games athletes deliver each event.”
The events success this year included:
• Television: Winter X Games 13 was ESPN’s highest-rated and most-viewed Winter X Games in history. The eight telecasts averaged 942,000 homes, up nine percent from 2008. Young male and people demos were up double digits from last year. Three of ESPN’s eight Winter X Games telecasts, delivered over a 1.0 rating this year –Friday prime time, Sunday afternoon and Sunday prime time. Sunday night's 1.3 rating and 1,242,210 homes makes it the highest-rated and most-viewed Winter X Games telecast ever. ABC's Winter X Games 13 telecast on Saturday averaged a 1.2 household rating and 1,376,481 households.
• Fan Voting: Fans in attendance and viewing Winter X Games 13 in the US registered record voting via text messaging to determine the winners of the Ski Big Air and Snowboard Big Air competitions. Each competition logged more than 100,000 votes via text messaging in less than ten minutes. Fans gave Simon Dumont the gold medal in Ski Big Air (for his double front flip with a Superman extension), and gave the Gold to Travis Rice (for his double back flip 1080).
• Apple iTunes, Microsoft Xbox and ESPN TV VOD: Winter X Games premium video content was available on demand on ESPN TV VOD and available for purchase on Apple’s iTunes Store and Microsoft Xbox Video Marketplace, including complete ESPN event coverage of the four-day event - as well as a Best of Ski, Best of Snowboard and Best of Snocross compilation following the games.
• ESPN Action Sports Video (ESPN.com/action): The new ESPN Action Sports network (espn.com/action), including XGames.com, delivered more than 680,000 views of video from January 22 - 26, a 60 percent increase over the same period for Winter X Games 12. The new online network of sites offered complete coverage of Winter X Games 13, including news, event info and schedules, athlete bios and much more. For more on ESPN Action Sports, click here.
• Mobile: ESPN Mobile TV offered 12 hours of live Winter X Games 13 coverage. Additionally, ESPN’s industry-leading mobile Web site and award-winning ESPN MVP mobile application delivered complete editorial coverage, including news, features, results, alerts and video highlights.
• ESPN360.com: ESPN360.com offered more than 20 hours of live online coverage of Winter X Games 13, including eight hours of exclusive coverage.
• ESPN International: Winter X Games 13, was televised on ESPN's international networks in Australia (including HD), New Zealand, Israel, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East. This event was televised on ESPN’s International networks to more than 122 countries and it was syndicated to an additional 20 countries through syndication to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
(Source: Sportsbusinessnews.com)
