EDM and action sports: an unlikely pair, yet strangely kindred spirits in the infinite scroll of dopamine hits we call life in 2026.
There’s a reason a perfectly landed 1080 and a particularly filthy bass drop produce the same involuntary crowd reaction: both are the payoff of unbearable tension. Both arrive in a single, irreversible instant. And both, if you’ve ever experienced them live, make you feel like you were there for something that can’t quite be replicated on a screen.
X Games has been engineering those moments for over three decades, but the competition is starting to look different. The Sacramento edition of the newly launched MoonPay X Games League, running June 26–28 at Cal Expo, arrives with Kaskade and Subtronics as headliners of music programming that signals the brand is no longer treating DJs as warm-up acts to the main event. Performances by those EDM superstars, who are fresh off massive performances at Coachella, will runs parallel to 18 medal competitions featuring over 100 of the world’s top skateboarders, BMX riders and Moto X athletes.
“When I was nine, my dad took me to the X Games at City Hall in Philadelphia, and it was the best day of my life,” Subtronics said. “I’ve always been a huge fan of skateboarding, so getting to be part of this now feels surreal. Honestly, it might be one of the coolest moments of my career so far. I can’t fully put into words how excited I am.”
X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom is a two-time Olympian and four-time World Champion freestyle skier, a former NFL wide receiver, a DJ for MTV, and a serial entrepreneur who has raised tens of millions in venture capital. When he talks about what it takes to hold an audience, he’s drawing from an unusually deep well of lived experience.
That cross-disciplinary fluency shapes everything about how X Games is approaching its music identity. Thanks to its tension-and-release dynamics and genuine overlap with the rebellious DNA of action sports, electronic dance music has become the event’s most natural creative partner. Nyjah Huston, one of the greatest street skateboarders of all-time, is even DJing the kickoff party.
We caught up with Bloom to unpack how he thinks about all of it.
EDM.com: What’s the X Games team’s approach when you’re selecting artists? Are you chasing the biggest names, the best fit for the sport or something else entirely?
Jeremy Bloom: It starts with energy and authenticity. Obviously, big names matter — people want to feel like they’re part of something massive — but at X Games, the wrong artist can feel big and still miss completely. We’re looking for artists who understand intensity, momentum and crowd connection the same way our athletes do. The best X Games performances feel like another final. There’s anticipation, risk, release. That’s why EDM has become such a great fit. The culture overlaps in a really real way. We’re building an experience, not just a concert lineup. The music has to amplify what’s happening on the course, not compete with it.
EDM.com: You’ve lived both sides of the stage: the athlete performing for the crowd and the DJ controlling the crowd’s energy. Which role taught you more about what X Games fans actually need from a live experience?
Jeremy Bloom: Being an athlete taught me what fans respect. DJing taught me what fans feel. As an athlete, you learn fans can spot authenticity instantly. They want to see somebody fully committed. They don’t care if it’s messy sometimes — they care that it’s real. But DJing gave me a totally different appreciation for pacing, emotion and collective energy. You realize the crowd wants to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want moments they remember with their friends five years later. The magic of X Games is when those two things collide: authentic competition and emotional connection.
Credit: Image Courtesy of X Games
EDM.com: You’re an athlete who’s also founded startups and raised tens of millions in VC funding. When you watch DJs like Kaskade and Subtronics own crowds of nearly 100,000 people like they each did at Coachella, do you see parallels to what it takes to perform under pressure in competition?
Jeremy Bloom: Absolutely. Pressure is pressure. Whether you’re dropping into a halfpipe, pitching investors or standing in front of 100,000 people at Coachella, the common denominator is preparation meeting execution in a high-stakes moment. What I respect most about elite DJs is their ability to read energy in real time. Athletes do the same thing. You can have a game plan, but the environment changes constantly. Crowd energy changes. Conditions change. Momentum changes. The people who separate themselves are the ones who stay composed while still taking risks. That’s what makes somebody world-class in any arena.
EDM.com: EDM and action sports both trade in the feeling of a perfect moment: a drop, a trick landed, etc. How intentional are you about designing the live X Games experience around that shared emotional peak?
Jeremy Bloom: Very intentional. Honestly, that’s the blueprint. The best action sports moments and the best music moments have the same anatomy: tension, risk and release. Everybody feels it at once. That’s why a massive trick landing can feel exactly like a beat drop to a crowd. There’s this collective explosion of emotion. We spend a lot of time thinking about rhythm — not just musically, but across the entire event experience. How do you build anticipation? How do you sustain momentum? How do you create moments where 20,000 people react simultaneously? That’s when X Games becomes more than a sports event. It becomes cultural.
EDM.com: Skateboarding has always had an incredibly specific relationship with music, from dubstep to punk to rock. How do you honor those distinct histories while still building a unified X Games sound?
Jeremy Bloom: You respect the roots first. Skate culture, BMX culture, Moto X — they all came up with different soundtracks and identities. You can’t flatten that out or it loses its soul. What’s interesting now is younger fans don’t consume culture in silos anymore. Their playlists are all over the place. One minute it’s punk, the next it’s bass music, then hip-hop. X Games reflects that evolution naturally. So our goal isn’t to force one sound. It’s to create a vibe where all those influences can coexist authentically. The connective tissue is energy, rebellion and creativity. That’s always been the DNA of X Games.
Credit: Image Courtesy of X Games
EDM.com: Is there an EDM artist you haven’t been able to book yet who you feel would be the perfect X Games headliner? And what makes them the right fit?
Jeremy Bloom: There are a few. But the artists that excite me most for X Games are the ones who create experiences, not just sets. The right headliner for us understands spectacle, understands pacing and knows how to make a crowd feel fully immersed. What makes somebody a perfect fit for X Games is the same thing that makes a great athlete: fearlessness. We want artists who push boundaries and aren’t afraid to go big. That’s the spirit of this event.
EDM.com: If you could redesign one element of how music and sport intersect at X Games, something no event has ever tried, what would it be?
Jeremy Bloom: I’d love to blur the line between competition and performance even more. Imagine live scoring, visuals and music reacting in real time to what athletes are doing on course — almost like turning an event final into an interactive live production. Action sports are already incredibly cinematic. Technology is finally catching up to where we can make fans feel completely immersed in the moment instead of just watching it happen. That’s where I think this goes next.
EDM.com: Over three decades in, X Games is one of the few events on earth that genuinely merges elite sport and live music into a single experience people can’t get anywhere else. What does the next 30 years look like, and where does music sit in that vision?
Jeremy Bloom: The future is about immersion and community. Fans don’t just want to attend events anymore — they want experiences that feel emotionally unforgettable. That’s where music becomes even more important. Sport brings the stakes. Music brings the emotion. Together, they create culture. I think the next 30 years of X Games will be less about separate categories — sports over here, concerts over there — and more about building one continuous experience where everything feeds each other. The athletes, the artists, the fans, the creators. At its best, X Games has always represented what’s next. I think music will continue to be one of the biggest drivers of that evolution.
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