NBC Seeks X Sports Share

The network's inaugural Gravity Games, promising more viewers, will challenge ESPN's X Games for a piece of the extreme sports market.

Do you feel like the X Games came and went too quick? Still have an urge to see Cesar Mora do a 1080 on a vert run? Or maybe you have a craving for a street course with more rails than Amtrak.

Well here's a solution for you—NBC's Gravity Games, Sep. 9-12 in Providence, RI, is just around the corner. With full network coverage, the event promises to propel extreme sports into the public eye like never before.

Unlike the X Games, which are primarily broadcast on ESPN, the Gravity Games will be aired on NBC, the first major network to ever sponsor and broadcast an extreme sport event. It will be aired for five consecutive Sundays beginning in October.

NBC, which reaches 99.4 million homes, has a decided advantage over the X Games in viewership. The Summer X Games reach 75 million homes when broadcast on ESPN, and fewer when on ESPN2. The Gravity Games mark the first major rival to the X Games and may provide the sport with a much-needed boost.

"There is no doubt that the leap to network television is huge in terms of the people who will watch the program," said Todd Shays, president of the Aggressive Skater's Association (ASA). The ASA, the sport's organizing body, already sanctions the X Games aggressive events and will do the same for the Gravity Games.

NBC is using the ASA Pro Tour to qualify skaters for the Gravity Games, which should ensure a talent level comparable to the X Games. The network is partnering with EMAP Peterson, the publisher of such alternative sport magazines as Box, Slam and Skateboarder. By including Box, the largest-circulation aggressive magazine, the partnership may help provide credibility in a sport where most athletes are cynical to major corporations and mainstream society.

"It might take some time for it to gain acceptance. The Gravity Games will have to earn that," said Shays.

Other sports that will be at the event are bike stunt riding, skateboarding, downhill skateboarding, street luge, wakeboarding, and freestyle motorcross.

An added element of the Games will be the added intensity of X Games athletes who were upset by underdogs at this year's competition. Fabiola da Silva will try to avenge her X Games defeat in women's vert when she takes on the newly crowned vert champion, Ayumi Kawasaki. The heavily favored dynamic vert duo of Cesar Mora and Matt Salerno both came up short in the X Games, as underdog Eito Yasutoko snatched the gold from them. Now the two will have another chance to prove themselves in an anticipated rematch.

Winners of the events will win what has become the standard in these competitions: a medal and prize money. So what's the difference between the X and Gravity Games? According to Gravity organizers, the structure of their event will focus more on the interacting of fans as opposed to the spectator-based X Games. The competition will be based around a multitude of corresponding activities, including a concert, a "festival" village and bands playing almost every day. There will even be a film festival from independent filmmakers, showing off their best in alternative sports films.

The Games will be spread out across an entire town instead of being crammed into one course area. The festival village will have an update center for fans to keep up on all of the events. There will also be food vendors and product demo booths from industry manufacturers showing off their latest products.

This is just the first of what NBC hopes to be a total of at least three such events, including an international games and a winter games. The winter event will be held in Mammoth, CA, in 2000. The site of the international event is undetermined.