ESPN just wrapped its annual action-sports extravaganza known as the X Games, which took over downtown Los Angeles including multiple venues at L.A. Live and the Staples Center Thursday through Sunday. This year's event brought fewer X Games partners than last year's, but ESPN nevertheless increased sponsorship revenue and signed Red Bull as its first partner in the beverage category in four years. The games brought four official partners—Red Bull, Ford, the U.S. Navy, and BF Goodrich—and 11 sponsors across its multimedia, TV, print, and digital platforms.
Los Angeles, along with Aspen, Colorado, and Tignes, France, will join new cities as hosts of the games, part of the international expansion ESPN announced back in May. The event will head to Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil; Munich; and Barcelona, Spain, beginning in 2013.
Although the games won't all be carbon copies of one another, and ESPN has yet to reveal its global partners, the L.A. event allowed sponsors to show off a sample of the branding and integrations fans might expect to see in the new cities, putting their marks on the sports competition from subtle details to dramatic, made-for-TV branding. Here's a look at what they did.
