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Shaun White out of the X Games

Shaun White out of the X Games – for negative comments Shaun White–one of the most dominant athletes in X Games history–was left off the X Games invite list this year and according to several sources, first reported by Sports Business Journal, ESPN didn’t invite White due to negative comments he made about the network and its franchise in an interview where he spoke about his own Air + Style event coming up later this month. What exactly did he say? There were two sections of the interview with Forbes where White was openly negative about the X Games. When speaking on the possibility of the X Games partnering with his Air + Style event: “X Games was planning on expanding their reach and going global with all these events around the world, and I did all these meetings with them and got all the way down the road to do this big deal and it never really panned out, so I was like, ‘Wow, this is perfect. They don’t want to do this with me so I’m immediately going to go and set out and do what I want to do, because the idea’s still there and the passion’s still there. You run into this dead end and there’s only one way to turn, which is to go back the way you came and do it yourself.” Then again when addressing ESPN and the X Games’ attempt to reach an international audience: “X Games went global, it was a huge failure,” he explained, “they used the same marketing everywhere [and] ended up diluting the brand.” White was on a roll this year, having won the halfpipe contest at the Dew Tour in December. When asked by The Inertia in Aspen about the White snub, X Games Vice President Tim Reed declined to comment.

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