X Games vs. AST Dew Tour: What's Better?
Aug 08 2007 / Los Angeles, CAThe X Games are the grandaddy of action sports events, having been around for 13 years and also having a winter component that has served as an Olympic preview ever since snowboarding was added. The AST Dew Tour doesn't have that pedigree -- after all it's in the middle of its third year. However, the history of the Dew Tour dates back to the Gravity Games, which started in 1995 and ran through 2005 (with a 2006 edition in Australia). Also, if you look at the first two years of the Dew Tour, you find that it's held 10 contests, with two more this year, meaning that it's pretty much caught up with the X Games.
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That said, here's a comparison between the two events using a variety of categories. For purposes of this, more recent editions are being used (so don't expect any Rhode Island call outs for the 1st X Games)...
Parking
This is the first thing that greets any person who comes to any action sports event, and first impressions can go a long way.
X Games: Never in my life have I had the priviledge of paying so much money to park so far away from an event. For $20, I was given the honor of parking more than half-a-mile away from the Home Depot Center and was able to stroll across the scenic campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills. And with the sun beating down, it was really, really pleasant. Too bad I didn't spend the $40 for "Preferred" Parking. Parking at Staples Center was actually better. It was $20 to park very close, but the price did go down every block or so away. There was no need to park half-a-mile away. GRADE: Home Depot Center (HDC): F, Staples: B+
Dew Tour: I've been to five Dew Toru stops and am intimately familiar with the parking situation at North Coast Harbor, where the Right Guard Open was held a few weeks ago. Normally these events are held near large venues that are equipped to handle big crowds (like Staples Center). To think I complained when I had to walk about a football field to get to the venue. After X13, I would skip that distance while whistling a pleasant tune. GRADE: A
Festival Village/X Fest
After the trek in from the parking lot, you normally get to experience the Festival Village -- the place where booths are set up to show off sponsors, etc. and autograph sessions are held.
X Games: Huge , spread out X Fest area, with a seperate music pavillion with some shade (a plus). Lots of interactive areas for kids, including a min skate park and a bowl/ramp set up by Element. Autograph sessions were common and fairly well advertised. Food was very, very expensive, but I guess that's no surprise. A slight minus -- no festival set up at Staples Center. Of course it wouldn't make any sense. Another minus -- I don't recall having to go through so much security for any of the Dew Tours... GRADE: B+
Dew Tour: Good-sized festival village, but not as big as X Fest. Clear autograph schedule. Easy to enter and walk around in. And you get a rail jam in Portland. Nice. GRADE: B
Overall Venues
X Games is spread out over two whole cities, while the Dew Tour usually uses an event center (usually, but not always, basketball) and the surrounding area for the contests.
X Games: Due to heavy construction around Staples Center this year, there were no outdoors events there and only a few events (Big Air, Moto X Best Trick and Step Up). Big waste of a good venue for events like Vert. It seems silly that they even did anything in LA this year but I suppose if they didn't, it would have been X Games 13 in Carson. The HDC in Carson is actually several different venues, including a cycling velodrome (fancy name for a bike track), a tennis court and a couple of soccer stadiums. To be honest, I was unimpressed by them all. Too spread out, too open and just not my type. At least they were fairly new. But getting around is a bitch. GRADE: C
Dew Tour: Like I said, usually the Dew Tour takes place in basketball centers like the Rose Garden in Portland and the Amway Arena in Orlando. With the new stops in Cleveland and Baltimore, things were mixed up a little and all events were outdoors (Salt Lake City will use the home of the Utah Jazz). Sitting inside for Vert and BMX Park is usually great. Good views, comfortable conditions, just nice. FMX is outside, sure, and so is BMX Dirt, but that's fine (and actually that's not always the case, either). Sometimes the venues are old, but I'll take the compact grouping any day of the week and twice on Sunday. GRADE: B+
Skate Competitions/Venues
Both events feature Skate Street (Park for Dew) and Vert. X Games also offers Big Air.
X Games: The Skate Street competition was held indoors at the ADT Events Center, which was a considerable hike from the rest of the HDC. Add in that parking schlep and, well, not fun. The course was pretty sweet, broken into three zones, and was done in a complete jam format vs. how Dew does it. Spectator seating seemed a little limited and odd, but the view wasn't that bad, actually. And there was a Best Trick contest, too. Skate Vert was held outdoors for the first time (since it was moved from Staples Center this year) and the wind did play a bit with the event. Also, seating was non-existant as a result. Fans had to STAND for three hours or so in the blazing sun to watch the finals, and people in the front didn't like it when a tall dude entered the media section to watch the action from the side (um, yeah, that was me). Big Air was inside Staples for the first time and it was not really an event to watch in person -- it's a made-for-tv event and as Morgan Wade told me, is "Car crash TV". Thank God Jake Brown is alive and well. GRADE: B (a little consideration given that Vert is not normally outside and may not be next year when the Staples Center is back up)
Dew Tour: Normally the Dew Tour has the Skate Vert competition inside and skate park outside, but there are exceptions... When held outside, Vert is suceptible to the elements and it can affect things. However, at least there are stands for the fans vs. standing on the ground for three hours. The Park contest is different than Street in that there are individual runs mixed with a jam format and not all riders like that. Also, the course can be hard to see from all angles unless there is seating higher up, as was done for X. Vert is Vert, with minor variations done with the halfpipe depending on the tour stop. GRADE: B+
BMX Competitions/Venues
As you should know by now, Dirt was dropped by X Games but Big Air added. Dew still has Dirt.
X Games: No dirt, no passing grade from us. Otherwise, the BMX Park course was pretty wicked, but pretty condensed. Some complaints about it. BMX Vert had the same problems as Skate Vert. Big Air, well, basically the same as Skate -- no fun seeing Chad Kagy break his collarbone and miss a month or two of action. GRADE: D (for Dirt)
Dew Tour: Basically the same issues as Vert -- the Park course is sometimes shared with Skate Park and that can be problematic. However, sometimes it's all indoors and works pretty well. BMX Dirt is BMX Dirt. Usually a fun contest with good views and normally outside. GRADE: A-
FMX/Motorsports
Anything with a motor and wheels...
X Games: X offers six different motor sports -- the total number of sports that Dew Tour has by its lonesome.... Step Up is a joke. Best Trick is fine and has provided some really memorable moments. The basic FMX contest is fine, too, though there were some real complaints about the course this year. Everything else -- I could care less. But quantity over quality, right? GRADE: A+
Dew Tour: Sorry, but FMX is like the red-headed stepchild compared to everything else. I don't think it's meant to be, but it certainly has felt that way. Course is fine, but poor weather the first two stops have made it a non-event. GRADE: D
Athlete Participation - Men
What draws more/better athletes?
X Games: Since it is an invite-only process, there is a limit to who shows up, but the list usualy includes a number of people who won't come to the Dew Tour. Skate Street is where you see that happen the most, but when was the last time Mat Hoffman showed up for a Dew Tour? Or Danny Way? Part of that definitely has to do with the $50K payout for a gold, with large payouts for silver and bronze. GRADE: A
Dew Tour: While the payout may not be as much for one stop, the Dew Tour ($15K for a win vs. $50K), there is the Dew Cup race plus various bonuses. Ask Jamie Bestwick about his $115K payday in Orlando last year ($75K for Dew Cup, $15K for Orlando Win, $25K bonus for overall best athlete score) -- I'm sure he will tell you that it was pretty sweet. Aside from that, the Open model of the first two stops allows everyone and anyone to come on down and try their hand at making the finals, which can mean some real great stories come out of it. GRADE: A
Athlete Participation - Women
We like Girls who Shred....
X Games: Sure the purse is less than half that of men's, but which is better -- half of or 0% of? GRADE: A (it has it)
Dew Tour: No Girlz allowed! GRADE: F
Seeing the Athletes
For the action sports fan, it's important to get as up close and personal with the athletes as possible.
X Games: Due to the set up of Vert and Street, fans could actually camp out to see their favorite athletes. Seeing Ryan Sheckler bust through the huge swarm was amusing but what was extremely cool was seeing Chad Muska stop and talk with every single fan who asked him for an autograph or who wanted to shake his hand. That was something repeated with many other athletes. It wasn't always that easy, but add the athlete appearances and it was a great chance for fans to see some of their favorites. Also, due to the location, there were athletes not participating (like the Element team) that would show up, too. GRADE: A
Dew Tour: When you use a big center that means after an event the athletes can retreat inside and fans have very little chance of seeing them walk around. They can wait by the gates, but the Dew Tour does a good job of giving athletes clear access. Good for them, bad for fans. GRADE: C
Webcasts/Telecasts
Okay, so what about the people who can't make it in person? What provides better coverage?
X Games: No contest, I'm afraid. First off, with ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 available, there was a ton of TV coverage. Secondly, the X Games realy embraced the web this time, going as far to webcast prelims for Skate Street, in addition to a ton more stuff. The camera work was hot, announcing was good. Only part is that the website was a little confusing sometimes, but so it goes... Would be a perfect grade if things didn't get delayed so often based on programming on ESPN... GRADE: A-
Dew Tour: Good TV coverage, but sometimes one event will get lost because five events normally get shown. Delving into some webcasting (FMX for stop one, Skate Park for stop two) helps, but for TV some riders will always get cut to make the event fit. GRADE: B
Media
A little selfish, but how do these events treat the media? Now's your chance to hear how "glamourous" the other side lives.
X Games: At HDC, there's only one media center and it's not bad -- plenty of seating outside offered a great view of the action (if you cared). There was wireless and some nice swag. Food was good and plenty of Pepsi products (yummy). Media access to most events was pretty good, especially the street and BMX Vert contests, where the athletes had no choice but to mingle with the press (unlucky them, lucky us). The bummer -- Skate Vert got so crowded they closed down access, even though the media tower was pretty empty. I think they changed their mind later, but by that time I was standing in the sun on the other side. Staples Center had terrible media access that I saw, but I didn't get to check out that media center. All in all, a wash. GRADE: B
Dew Tour: Good media centers with TVs usually showing all the action, with a steady flow of food and Pepsi products (yummy), plus plenty of beef jerky. Media access for most events is good, though finals gets pretty crowded. The Orlando tour stop featured a media area packed with VIPs and family and friends (X Games had a good separation). What hurts the fans in terms of athletes helps the press, since in the bowels of an event center it's a pretty common occurrence to run into any number of skate/BMX athletes. And I don't know about everyone, but I usually got free parking. Usually. GRADE: A
Parties
So this may not matter to the fans, but it matters to the sponsors and athletes, thank you very much.,
X Games: Another reason to keep part of the event at Staples was so X Games could hold just about every party in the LA area. Sure, that meant people had to drive from Carson over to downtown, but why not? Parties included a big Red Bull bash, Monster Energy, Maxim, Tony Hawk Foundation, an official charity event for X and a Disturbia DVD release in Hollywood. I'm sure there were more, but that's already more than the Dew Tour holds in most cities... GRADE: A
Dew Tour: The Dew Tour usually holds two or three for athletes and press and you might see some other parties, but while you don't have the big "official" parties, what that means, at least in smaller cities, is that the athletes go out and party with the locals. Case in point -- last year in Louisville, Kentucky, there weren't all that many places to go that were open past 10 p.m. So who should we see falling out of a cab but Ryan Guettler and others. Looking very drunk and very happy. Ah, to be young. GRADE: B+
Overall
Looking at just the categories above, the X Games may have a slight edge, but the Dew Tour definitely has some advantages. Not everyone can travel to Los Angeles for X Games so having five stops across the country will give those people a good chance to see a great contest elsewhere. Also, fitting in six events over three days is a bit easier to handle then 14 in four days.
There's no one clear winner, but the X Games should know, it's not the only game in town. Well, I guess if you want to be literal, it is the only game in LA, but I think you know what I mean.
- Greg Baerg
