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Star skateboarder Mizuho Hasegawa, 14, competes on the vertical ramp at the 2025 X Games in Salt Lake City in June 2025. The Moonpay X Games League\u2019s first event, at Cal Expo in Sacramento, begins Friday evening.<\/p>\n
X Games<\/p>\n
The first thing X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom wanted to tell the 50,000 fans he expects to flood Cal Expo for the first-ever Sacramento games<\/a> this weekend might come as a shock.<\/p>\n Qualifying for the X Games, Bloom said, is significantly harder than qualifying for the Olympics, because only between six and eight athletes compete in any given event.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just math,\u201d Bloom said Friday in an introductory news conference for the Sacramento X Games, which begin late that afternoon. \u201cThis truly is the best athletes in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond the three-day event being the first X Games in Sacramento, the games also hold added significance as the first-ever stop on the new MoonPay X Games League.<\/p>\n In the new league, four teams of five women and five men will compete across three events for a $500,000 prize, unlike than the individual, isolated format of prior X Games. On top of the 40 drafted athletes, nearly 50 free agents will also compete at Cal Expo from Friday to Sunday, hoping for individual glory and the chance to make it onto a roster by the end of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cTo (have) the first stop on this in Sacramento is such a big deal,\u201d Mike Testa, president and CEO of Visit Sacramento, said in the news conference. \u201cWe\u2019re grateful to have you here. The weather is going to be perfect this weekend. It\u2019s going to be a phenomenal time. Thank you for trusting Sacramento.\u201d<\/p>\n Previous concerns about X Games having to contend with extreme heat in Northern California have disappeared, with forecasts topping out in the low 80s Friday through Sunday<\/a> as Sacramento enjoys an unseasonably cool end of June.<\/p>\n Tickets are still available on the X Games website<\/a>, ranging from single-day viewing beginning at $19 to three-day premium tickets with access to all three music performances \u2014 Kaskade on Friday and Mustard and Subtronics on Saturday \u2014 for more than $400.<\/p>\n How will the format work?<\/p>\n Athletes will compete in 18 different events across the three days, beginning with men\u2019s BMX park at 5 p.m. Friday and concluding with women\u2019s skateboard vertical at 6:45 p.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n Events kick off in the late morning Saturday and Sunday, with competition ending about 8 p.m. each of the three days.<\/p>\n The full schedule of events and when they will take place can be found on the X Games\u2019 Sacramento website, xgames.com\/events\/sacramento-2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most events involve skateboards or BMX bikes, with male and female athletes competing separately.<\/p>\n Athletes will perform routes involving jumps, flips, twists and more in park events and will do the same through city-inspired tracks in street contests.<\/p>\n There is also the vertical, which sees competitors go up and down a halfpipe performing tricks and flips at the top; and dirt courses, where athletes fly over large dirt hills while performing tricks.<\/p>\n There are also two motocross events, though they are not divided by gender and will not be counted as part of the team format.<\/p>\n Many events have best trick variants, where athletes perform just their most difficult stunt, or are exclusively competed in this style, like the two motocross events.<\/p>\n Points are awarded to the four clubs \u2014 representing New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil \u2014 based on the placement of that team\u2019s competitor at any given event, or the best-performing one if multiple from one team are entered in the same event. Podium finishes are rewarded, though officials said they made the scoring to \u201ccreate the most competition possible.\u201d<\/p>\n The team with the most points after the three events will win the grand prize at the championship from July 24-26 in New Orleans.<\/p>\n Free agents, Bloom said, provide extra intrigue as they try to prove themselves to the teams that didn\u2019t select them, hoping to earn a spot if an athlete is injured or when the league hopes to expand its team lineup in the coming years.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s going to be some really cool history that happens here in Sacramento, where a free agent is going to win and look around like, \u2018What\u2019s wrong with these GMs?\u2019\u201d Bloom said. \u201cThere\u2019s a chip on their shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n
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