After a decade of holding the Summer X Games in L.A., ESPN will move to a new city in '14. The company, which created the X Games in '95, today announced that it will take its showcase summer event to one of four cities: Chicago, Detroit, Charlotte, or Austin. ESPN selected the four finalists from a list of 20 U.S. cities that bid to host the event. Each city committed to host the X Games for three consecutive years beginning in '14. ESPN Senior VP/Programming & Global X Games Scott Guglielmino in an e-mail wrote, “Finalists have demonstrated passion and excitement about partnering with us to bring the X Games to their cities. Support comes in many forms. There is pure financial but also passion, understanding of the event and a vision for what it could be in their city. Also, the resources to form (a local organizing committee) and world-class venues to ensure success. ” Guglielmino added that L.A. and AEG, which collaborated to host Summer X Games the last 10 years, had been “fantastic hosts.” But he said that with the "overall expansion and transformation planned for X, we felt this was the right time to seek a new city to host the event and bring the X Games experience to another region of the country. Southern California is and will always be in the X Games DNA.” The selection of a new host city for the Summer X Games is the latest step in ESPN’s reinvention of the event. The company announced last year that it would expand to six events by adding three int'l events. It held the first of those earlier this month near Iguazu Falls, Brazil, and will hold events in Munich and Barcelona later this year. ESPN also requested proposals to host future Winter X Games and those submissions are due this June. Aspen has hosted the winter event since '02.
