DETROIT — Action Sports Detroit, the organizer of the bid to lure the 2014-2016 X Games to Detroit, today released a new video on its Facebook page, designed to increase its fan base and support for bringing the extreme sports competition to the city.
ESPN, the creator of the X Games, last month announced that after 10 years the event will move from its original Los Angeles location. After an intense grassroots campaign, Detroit was one of four cities winning bidding rights to host the ESPN X Games for three consecutive years beginning in 2014. Chicago, Austin, Texas, and Charlotte are the other three finalist cities.
Action Sports Detroit Founder and Director Kevin Krease and Managing Partner Garret Koehler, the driving force behind the effort to bring the X Games to Detroit, said the video is just one piece of a grass roots campaign.
“We’re thrilled that the ESPN X Games team gave Detroit a shout out as ‘the most vociferous in its desire to host the games,’ ” said Koehler. “It simultaneously affirmed our vision for this movement and broadened our vocabulary.
“This video is meant to embody the ethos of our movement, which we believe is an expression of the vibrant new energy infused into the city’s center: People occupying and activating spaces in innovative ways for constructive ends, and doing so with the sort of creative freedom that underpins the action sports lifestyle. The X Games belong in Detroit,” said Koehler.
Detroit-based production house The Work produced the video.
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“The Work was an early partner in this process because they grasped our vision, identified with it, and clearly had the skill set to help us share it with others in a poignant way. It’s been surreal watching them turn a crazy coffee shop idea into this amazing video,” Krease said.
The creative team at The Work was a perfect match for the X Games video project.
“The intention of this video is to provide a taste of what the X Games could look like in Detroit. We had such an outpouring of help and support in making this; it only solidifies what the city is capable of accomplishing,” said The Work’s Christopher Gruse.
Dan Gilbert, founder and chairman of Rock Ventures and Quicken Loans and one among a list of sponsors supporting the bid, said the team’s just-released video helps demonstrate why the X Games and Detroit are a perfect fit.
“Detroit was made for the X Games,” said Gilbert. “Our urban core is composed of young, diverse and creative people. Winning this bid to host the X Games for three consecutive years beginning next summer provides an outstanding opportunity to showcase to an international audience what Detroit has to offer.”
ESPN will decide next month where the Games will land.
To support the bid to bring the X Games to Detroit, visit: www.facebook.com/XGamesDetroit or Twitter & Instagram: @XGamesDetroit #XG2D.
