A couple weeks back Transworld Business sat down with a few of X Games executives to discuss everything from the past, present and future of X Games.  Here is their interview with Tim Reed, Senior Director of Sports Competition for X Games events and development.  They talk about what’s working and how they plan on competing with Rob Dyrdek’s Street League Skateboarding next summer.

Tim Reed is the senior director of sports competition for X Games events and development and has been working at X for the past thirteen years. For the last six years, Reed has been in charge of looking back to the last years’ events to find room for improvement. Whether it is improving event formats, designs, or even the materials used, Reed makes tons of changes each year.

“Each year we can redo the product if need be, and that is the beauty of X Games,” says Reed.

TransWorld spoke with Reed at this year’s events  to talk more in depth about what he does.

As the senior director of sports competition, what are your chief duties and responsibilities?

Basically every year I take a look at what events we’re going to have at the X Games – what sports, what disciplines – take a look at those and make decision while working with a lot of people to see which ones we end up staging.

The next step, once we know what we are doing from a program and content standpoint, we start reaching out and working with designers and course builders for each sport.

The other portion of my responsibilities, are all the athlete invites, services, and all the various things that go along with that.

When it comes to each event’s course preparation and design, how do you approach the initial layout creation? Is it outsourced right from the beginning?

It’s a collaboration because we have ESPN dealing with the venues, so we have limitations and restrictions to work with. Then we start to collaborate with specific skate and motorcross designers and builders.

Do you worry that some of the designs, like this years street setup, take away from the hardcore skating people come to see?

One of our biggest goals is to provide the athletes the best course so the can do what they do. If they show up and can’t do the things they want to do, then we just didn’t hit it at all. So yeah, that is one of our biggest concerns.

How are the judges selected?

We work with World Cup as our sport organizer for all the skateboarding events, so they are in charge of providing judges.

Do you come into this each year looking for new events? For example, with this year’s “Real Street” edition being added to the skateboarding lineup, how long had you been planning on adding this?

Mike Sinclair, our skate guy, came to us about a year ago with this idea of getting pro skaters submitting video parts. We looked at it as a great digital application and way to promote the event and skaters on this broader platform at ESPN. We thought it would be a great way to get to a different part of the sport, and eventually other sports, with another platform.

A lot of the times we are thinking of new ideas, but we are always listening to athletes to stay current with what they want to do.

How do you plan to compete next summer once Rob Dyrdek’s Street League gets going?

For the next two years the professionals can skate at X Games if they want, and hopefully they will. We are producing, on the ESPN side, a good product to skate and a great platform for exposure.

What is the longest running event in X Games history?

Vert is our only discipline that has been involved in all sixteen years, and it was great [this year] again.

Source: Transworld Business