Minister of Culture and Tourism Ricardo Miranda, Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Tourism Calgary CEO Cindy Ady announced that Calgary has secured the exclusive Canadian rights to host X Games for a minimum three-year run.
The X Games in Calgary is being developed by Manifesto Sport Management, a Calgary based Sport Marketing and Management Company and Insight Productions, a Canadian broadcast production company that has produced the JUNO Awards and the Amazing Race Canada. Securing the rights to bring this project to life has been pursued by Tourism Calgary for almost a decade.
As the most relevant action sports and music festival in youth culture, featuring the best snowboarders and freestyle skiers and the most influential music artists in the world, hosting the X Games would bring significant economic benefits to Calgary, including an estimated: $75 million in annual economic activity, 75,000 annual spectators and more than 10,000 out-of-region annual visitors.
“We’re excited to be taking this step towards hosting the first X Games on Canadian snow,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “It’s about bringing Calgary to a world stage. The economic spinoffs are significant, and support our plans for tourism and economic development.”
With the exclusive rights, Calgary has the opportunity to join a prestigious list of X Games host cities including Aspen, Shanghai, Oslo and Sydney. Calgary would become the first Canadian city added to the X Games growing line up.
“We are thrilled to help bring the X Games to Canada for the first time. This is an important first step to secure the X Games, and we expect that the events will support 540 jobs annually,” said Ricardo Miranda, Minister of Culture and Tourism. “This would be a fantastic opportunity to show Alberta to the world, showcasing not only our amazing athletes and facilities, but our artists and culture as well.”
Calgary is targeting to host the X Games beginning in late February or early March of 2020, 2021 and 2022 subject to securing corporate sponsorship. Manifesto and Insight are currently in conversations with potential Calgary, Alberta and Canada-based corporate partners and the response from brands has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We’re very excited about the opportunity to bring X Games to Canada and are encouraged by the work that the City of Calgary and Government of Alberta have put in to reach this point,” said Tim Reed, VP X Games, ESPN. “Canadian athletes have a rich tradition of high-level performance at X Games events and to bring the X Games to their backyard would be awesome. When you combine the amazing athletes with the backdrop and venues of Calgary, the potential is there to produce a really special Canadian- inspired X Games. We look forward to working to make this a reality.”
With hosting concepts approved between Calgary Stampede and WinSport Canada, Calgary’s X Games concept is for a city-wide event, bridging two iconic and important venues.
“Securing the exclusive Canadian rights to X Games is a tremendous step for Calgary. It offers us a great opportunity to continue to work with our community partners to bring this event to our city,” says Cindy Ady, CEO Tourism Calgary. “Hosting X Games has long been a goal of Tourism Calgary as it would further solidify our position as Canada’s winter sport capital and further our reputation of being the ultimate host city. With today’s announcement, we’re one step closer to making that a reality.”
Image courtesy Tourism Calgary
