X Games Gives The Norwegians A Double Whammy

The X Games has come a long way since the mid-nineties and is set to become a major event on the world stage as it breaks away from its American roots and its occasion foray into Asia and brings a summer/winter joint event to Oslo in February of 2016 giving Europeans the chance to see some of the world’s most adrenalin fueled sporting insanity.

Norwegian gambling laws, which have long hovered somewhere between unrealistically out of date and simply bloody useless, will doubtless take yet another kicking as a major sporting event gets booked to take place in the land of fjords and herring. The 2016 X Games will come to Oslo in February and bring a never-before-seen mixture of both its regular summer and winter events which should provide quite the spectacle.

X Games Goes To Oslo

• Adrenalin junkies to compete
• Winter & Summer events
• Skate course to remain afterward

The X Games is the US Sport’s broadcaster ESPN’s baby and they’ve shepherded it through years of only minor public awareness and an almost exclusively continental US base venue line up, watching it grow into an expanding market with hoards of fans spread right across the world. Oslo getting the X Games might seem a left-field choice but the ability to have both summer and winter events was too good an opportunity for organizers to pass up.

The street skateboard events, that will leave the legacy of a permanent track in place for the public to use, will be supplemented by snowboard and ski events being split between the two great venues of Oslo Winter Park and Tøyen. All in all Norway is offering up an unparalleled duality of both winter and summer sports within the same event in a manner no one else has yet managed to do on such a scale and ESPN are gambling it’s going to make a lot of sense.

X Games – Bikes, Boards & Bloopers

Those that like to bet on sports in Norway will already be aware of how dramatic the X Games can be, the entire thing drips with dramatic spectacle and exciting extremes, the American razzamatazz coating it from top to bottom and a quick glance through some of the many clips available online will pique the interest of even the most jaded sports fan. Add to it the laid back atmosphere amongst the somewhat bro-tastic competitors and you’re looking at a real winner.

With the chance of any one competitor saying “Gnarly dude” with a straight face during a post-competition interview hovering at almost 100% there’s an inherently counter-culture vibe that public relations have tried to tame but merely managed to smooth just a little. Compared to the world of Olympic athletes who feel the need to be part time diplomats, X Games competitors are a far more rough and ready bunch.

Indeed whilst the rest of the sporting world battles against drug abuse you get the impression that for most competitors in the X Games some of the more recreational should be mandatory if only to get them to calm the hell down. In the Olympics, famously, Ross Rebagliati was briefly stripped of his gold medal in 1998 for testing positive for marijuana, at the X Games you wonder if they shouldn’t be putting it in the water to prevent adrenalin overdoses.

Oslo Gets X Games Double Deal

With the massive backing of ESPN sponsors haven’t been backward about putting their logos next to these death defying lunatics. When major brands like Fruit Of The Loom are queuing up to get involved you start gambling news coverage is taking off and about to go global. These marketing decisions are not taken lightly and with the exposure measured on the bottom line you can expect to see far more of the X Games.

The executives at ESPN or within the X Games structure would probably mutter on about brand awareness, market position, consumer base and other assorted economic buzzwords, but the real reason the X Games can branch out to Oslo without much difficulty is because there are lunatics everywhere. Travel where you may on this planet and you’ll find some adrenalin junkies somewhere doing something ridiculous with whatever they have to hand.

The X Games merely gives these addled minded crazies a venue to extend the showing off they’ve always done and see if they’re the biggest show off and deserve a medal. Nearer the time you can expect ComeOn! Sportsbook or the like to run a book on the events, and indeed bookie stories or legends are made of situations like them either winning a losing a bundle on a skateboarder. So will you be wagering on these risk running ruffians come February?