Increased viewership for X Games Aspen
February 10, 2021
In the first action sports event to take place in North America since the pandemic put large events on hold, X Games Aspen 2021 content across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC experienced double-digit viewership increases on television and triple-digit growth on social and digital media platforms.
Driven by the rise of young talent, with six of the 14 gold medals being awarded to teenagers, X Games Aspen 2021 saw growth in video views on both Instagram and YouTube, as both accounts continued to see a large share – more than 65 per cent – of followers and subscribers between the ages of 13-34.
New to this year’s social media content offerings, X Games teamed up with TikTok to stream X Games Aspen 2021 live within the app. Across the three days of the event, TikTok live streamed five of X Games Aspen’s non-linear broadcasts, which resulted in 2.1 million live views. In addition, TikTok placed the #XGamesMode banner on the discover page which resulted in growth of 407 million views, and a total currently surpassing one billion views.
X Games Aspen 2021 television, social and digital media successes include:
Television
- X Games Aspen 2021 viewership across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC was up +15 per cent YOY for all telecasts.
- Increases in this year’s X Games Aspen were driven by people watching more minutes, up +16 per cent YOY.
Social & Digital
- X Games Aspen 2021 delivered more than 105 million video views across its TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat (+483 per cent YOY)
- Total TikTok video views: 63.3 million (+4,421 per cent YOY)
- Total TikTok followers: 403,507 (+1,097 per cent YOY)
- Total Instagram video views: 23.8 million (+166 per cent YOY)
- Total Instagram impressions: 107.1 million (+194 per cent YOY)
- Instagram stories garnered another six million impressions, with 46K average story views (+31 per cent YOY)
- Total Instagram followers: 2.9 million (+113 per cent YOY for event week)
- YouTube: 4.1M video views (+11 per cent YOY)
- YouTube: 42.1M minutes watched (+7 per cent YOY)
- Twitter: 11.4M impressions (+75 per cent YOY)
- Facebook: 578K total engagements (+319 per cent YOY)
- XGames.com also saw triple-digit growth the week of the event, with a +692 per cent YOY increase in average daily unique visitors, a +736 per cent YOY increase in page views and a +835 per cent YOY increase in total minutes spent on the website.
Globally, X Games Aspen was syndicated in 192 countries and territories and to more than 500 million homes.