Extreme Winter Sports Dominate
Over the past decade extreme sports have grown as a popular and even lucrative culture and pastime. Starting with traditional hobbies such as skateboarding, skiing, motor cross and bike riding extreme sports have burst on the scene combining elements of each one of these hobbies to create more and more events for young athletes to become involved with and in which to compete. The X-Games hit the ESPN airwaves in 1993 as a small one-day event that showcased the brightest stars in skateboarding, and BMX freestyle bike riding. Since the inception, the even has grown to birth not only a winter event counterpart but also hundreds of events all over the country and internationally. The success of these events have spawned the careers of many an athlete into super stardom through commercials and video game sponsorships, most notably Tony hawk, the legendary skateboarder and snowboarder and skateboarder Shaun White. Bi-annually the summer and Winter X-Games bring the best in extreme sports to thousands of adoring fans and millions more on via television broadcasts. The lesser-known tour events are even broadcast on major networks. Extreme, or action sports as they are sometimes named, have grown to encompass several events in many different disciplines. The summer and indoor events include street and vert skateboarding, a variety of BMX freestyle events and moto-cross freestyle jumping and racing. Winter events include a slew of skiing events including freestyle skiing and snowboarding and half-pipe runs as well as winter moto-cross and snowmobile racing. Born from the streets, parks and slopes in relative anonymity, these extreme pursuits have become a successful occupation for many a wide-eye teenager and a lucrative business model for equipment companies and television networks. As the popularity of extreme sports grow so does the demand for equipment not only for competition, but for fans who may not have been turned onto these hobbies and athletic pursuits any other way.