| In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors. |
X Games explode as advertisers obsess over Gen Y
Thursday August 14, 2003By TIM MOLLOY
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) Jamie Bestwick's first BMX competition in 1984 was in front of 250 people, most of them fellow riders, in a small hamlet outside his hometown of Nottingham, England.
When Bestwick comes to the X Games this week, returning for the first time since he won a gold medal in 2000, he'll boomerang his bike through the air before a live prime-time audience on ABC.
``With a lot of corporate input and people taking a chance on action sports, giving it the publicity it warrants, you can make a decent living from in essence just riding a BMX bike,'' said Bestwick, who will compete Sunday at the Staples Center. ``I can't think of a better job to have.''
At 32, he is twice as old as many of the millions of participants in action sports worldwide. But his years as a rider have allowed him to watch the competition go from skate parks to stadiums.
This week's games which started with a team surf contest over the weekend and resume Thursday could be the most widely viewed in the competition's nine-year history.
The events on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 are expected to reach more than 110 million homes in 145 countries and territories worldwide, spokeswoman Melissa Gullotti said. Sports include stunt skateboarding, in-line skating and wakeboarding.
The X Games have exploded thanks to advertisers' obsession with Gen Y and the changing way Americans play. While traditional team sports are holding steady, there's been a boom in sports like skateboarding and in-line skating or Aggressive In-Line Skate, as it's known at the games.
``This is what kids are doing. This is what they're more likely to watch as a fan,'' said Tom Doyle, a spokesman for the National Sporting Goods Association, a Mount Prospect, Ill.-based trade association. ``That's why the X Games are so successful. They've been able to attract advertisers who want to watch that demographic.''
Since 1993, the number of people who play America's most popular team sport, basketball, has held steady at about 29 million, Doyle said. But the most popular action sport, in-line skating, had 18.8 million participants in 2002, up from 12.4 million in 1993.
Participants in action sports are also younger than those in team sports, which is most important to companies that want to hook customers early. Forty-nine percent of basketball players nationwide are 17 or under, for example, compared with 61 percent of in-line skaters.
Why the youth appeal? Analysts say action sports tap into youthful rebellion in a way traditional sports don't.
``They're individualistic, there's an angry aspect to it, there's an in-your-face angle,'' said Harvey Lauer, president of American Sports Data Inc., a Hartsdale, N.Y., firm focused on sports and fitness research.
Lauer wrote an essay for his company's Web site describing most action sports as ``solitary activities that not only allow the participant to avoid social interaction, but provide an escape from supervision and authority.''
Doyle agrees that action sports give boys in their early teens a way to rebel, but says they're also a reaction to a way of life that forces many youths to take part in overly regimented group sports.
While kids of a few years ago could come together on their own for neighborhood games of baseball or touch football, today's youth are often pushed into organized leagues by their parents.
``A lot of parents are worried about their kids being out in an unsupervised environment,'' Doyle said. ``There are a lot of suburbs where you can't walk and do anything. You have to be driven somewhere.''
Thus skating or biking with friends becomes an alternative. And from that alternative, competition develops.
Bestwick, for example, started riding years before soft drink and snack food advertisers latched onto action sports in the mid-90s.
In 1998, he had a job working on compression engine blades for an aerospace company and competed in his spare time.
``Even when you won the contest, you knew you'd be back at work on Monday,'' he recalled.
That changed when GT Bicycles began sponsoring him. He and his wife moved to State College, Pa., and Bestwick now trains at the nearby Woodward Camp for gymnastics and action sports.
His sport, in which competitors launch their bikes off 12-foot high ramps and try to drop more jaws than their rivals with mid-air stunts, demands agility, conditioning, and the strength to throw a 35-pound bike around without losing hold or falling.
His workout routine includes power yoga and Pilates, non-impact exercises designed to help align the body. He spends four days a week at the gym and three days running.
Bestwick had to sit out the X Games the last two years because of a broken ankle in 2001 and broken arm in 2002. Looking to make a comeback this year, he has no regrets.
``It was a gamble because I had a good job and I made good money, but l always wanted to ride in the great contests I could never get to,'' he said. ``I took a chance and it's definitely paid off.''
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