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X Games League Reveals Competition Details

Originally posted on Powder | By Izzy Lidsky | Last updated Oct 7, 2025 8:49 AM ET

After a slew of massive changes were announced for the X Games, including a new logo that garnered a bit of pushback on social media, the actual rules of the new X Games League format have finally been announced.

When new X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom stepped into the role and helped to create the X Games League, his own pro-athlete background led him first and foremost to the conclusion that athletes in extreme sports were not getting paid enough in competition.

Athletes are often paying their way to competitions and putting it all on the line without any financial guarantee or safety net, and losing out if they don't place for prize money. The X Games League sought to change that by using models from 'traditional' sports like NFL and adapting them. Now, we finally know exactly how that will work.

X Games League Rules

The X Games League will feature skaters, snowboarders, BMX riders, and skiers. The League will run for both a summer and winter season and have clubs for each season. Summer clubs will have athletes in the BMX and skate disciplines and winter clubs will have ski and snowboard. Clubs will be privately owned and regionally repped in order to build loyalty such as that of regional sports teams. Each club will have a roster of 10 athletes, with both male and female athletes from around the world.

There will be three summer stops in 2026 and six stops both summer and winter of 2027, with plans to grow year by year. Each stop will be a three-day X Games event, much like those of the past with live music and more incorporated.

X Games League Events

Winter X Games League events will still include Superpipe, Big Air, Slopestyle, and Knuckle Huck for both ski and snowboard, as they have in the past. Events themselves will follow the same format they have in the past, with 12 athletes getting three runs. Club managers will tee-up athlete rosters for each event. Multiple athletes from the same team can enter the same competitions, but only the highest place finishers' scores will count towards points for their club. If not all 12 the slots are filled for a discipline, the League will bring in Free Agent athletes to compete.

X Games League Points System

Athletes will compete and rack up points from stop to stop throughout the season. At the end of each season, a discipline champion will be crowned for each sport and the club with the most overall points will be crowed X Games League champion.

During events, athletes that place in first will receive 100 points, 2nd place gets 85 points, 3rd is 75 points, 4th gets 60, 5th gets 50, and the rest decrease by 10 until 8th place which receives 0 points. At the final event of the season, discipline champions are crowned as is the X Games League Championship Club, who has racked up the most points through the season.

You can watch the X Games League full video on their system below and keep reading for more.

X Games League (Early) Opinion

The X Games League format is certainly an interesting one, especially for action sports. X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom said in an interview with POWDER in January that athletes on these League teams, or clubs, will get put on salary, get travel paid for, and have a health insurance stipend.

For action sports athletes that rarely see the same benefits as NFL or NBA players for example, its a dream. Bloom hoped to make freeskiing and other X Games disciplines viable, sustainable careers for those pushing the sport via competitions like the X Games, which is an admirable mission to say the least.

This season-based, rostered format certainly seems to do that. Without all the emphasis being placed on an individual athlete's ability to perform at one event, it takes some of the burden off of them, especially in the event of injury, illness, or just an off week.

There's a tiny part of me that gets the ick from how mainstream the X Games' new schtick feels. After all, isn't skiing still kind of cool because it's not football? But, I also understand that in order to monetize niche sports and support the athletes that make them happen, we have to engage a larger audience.

So, if making the X Games feel more like Sunday Night Football does that, I guess I can't complain too much.

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

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