Last week-end our family went to attend this year’s X-Games in Austin – the last time before the event moves to a different city to capture the next audience. The Event was hosted at the new F1 racing track “Circuit of the Americas” for the last two years. We got to see the BMX bike finals, moto-cross, slack line competition and skate board contests.
This was a large event with tens of thousands of people expected to attend, although this year’s Games were partially rained out and many events were delayed to Sunday, the last day.
It was awesome to watch the action of the sport competition, and the well oiled commercial machine attending to the spectators. While standing there it hit me that there were actually four differnet type of groups involved with the X-Games. All united by the event, but driven by very different motivations:
First there are the athletes. They want to compete with the best in their sport and push the limits of what is possible.
Second there are the event organizers of the commercial venue. They have an interest to attract the largest crowd possible to maximize their profit.
Thirdly there are the broadcasters who own the TV rights of the event who have a need to spin a good story and to sell lots of TV ads for commercial breaks. They need the event to look good on the screen and to have a story that keeps the TV audience glued to the screen across commercial breaks. Sadly while the most invisible participants locally, they have the furthest crowd reach.
And lastly, there are the local spectators like our family, who attend the event. They pay their own admission to feel priviliged to be “right where and when it happens”. They just want a cold drink and are looking for a good time. Many fail to realize they are the required event backdrop for the broadcasters, and the reason to make the event commercially viable for the organizers.
As you can see the athletes are only a small aspect of this commercially well oiled machine. The stronger dependencies actually run through the other groups.
But all these groups interact directly or indirectly in “needs” and “wants” relationships. X-Games are in the commercial epi-center of trend-setting. You can witness companies at the events, trying to utilize the image of the games to establish or re-invigorate their brands. There was Harley-Davidson, trying to get a more modern image and finding new customers beyond the vaning baby-boomers. Or iFly, the Austin business that allows “free fall” in a vertical wind tunnel for anybody who was willing to wear a jump suit.
The event was promoting a feeling and everybody wanted to be part of that in their own way.
We enjoyed the X-Games and I’m sure we’ll catch one or two X-Games contests on TV next year – as part of a different crowd. But being the athlete has to wait for another life time.
