The X Games are in an odd situation, as they’re one of the highest-profile competitions for many of their included sports, but are owned and run by a sports media company in ESPN rather than the international sports federations that run the world championships and Olympics. That has the potential for some conflicts of interest, and one appears to have shown up this year; Sports Business Journal‘s Ben Fischer reported this week that multiple sources said ESPN refused to invite star snowboarder Shaun White to this year’s X Games because he “disparaged the series while promoting his own Air + Style festival.” That ends the mystery of why White wasn’t competing, as ESPN only provided some vague comments about White not being invited to The Denver Post in January, but it raises a new question; is ESPN justified in picking who goes not based on merit, but based on their comments?
If the X Games were the Olympics or the world championships, the answer would be “absolutely not.” It calls the credibility of an event into question when the best athletes aren’t competing in it (see all the drama over White’s late withdrawal from the slopestyle event in the Sochi Olympics), and competitions like the Olympics and the worlds are solely about merit and determining who’s the best. Things get a little murkier when it comes to the X Games, though; yes, it’s a high-level athletic event, but it’s one whose primary purpose is creating programming for ESPN, and with them paying the costs for it, there’s at least an argument that they should be able to invite the athletes they want.
ESPN is walking a dangerous line here, though, and they risk devaluing the X Games with actions like this. White was a big part of making the Winter X Games the success they currently are, competing there for 15 years (every year since his debut in 2000 at 13, except for 2014 when he skipped the event to prepare for the Olympics) and winning 23 medals and a record 15 gold medals. It’s not like he doesn’t currently deserve a spot, either; he won the Dew Tour halfpipe contest in December and is still competing with the world’s best. Moreover, remember that ESPN is also a journalistic entity that has to cover White at times. That’s going to be more awkward now the business side has banned him from competing at the X Games.
What exactly did White say that bugged ESPN so much? Well, it seems the problem might have come from these comments he made about the X Games and his own Air+Style tour at Forbes‘ 30 Under 30 summit in October: