Tom Kiley wouldn’t call himself a “tech guy.” But he is likely going to lean on it more often in his new role.
He just joined X Games as SVP/global market development after a decade-plus helping the NFL with its international growth and expansion (it’s worth noting that his former league recently approved a 10-game international slate, starting in 2027). He’ll be a driving force as the league, which will start its debut summer season next month, continues to grow its global competition presence. Kiley is based in San Francisco and has begun building a staff. His first official day was May 1.
X Games has leaned more into technology since Jeremy Bloom became CEO in late 2024, best exemplified by Owl AI, a project around the Aspen 2025 competition that ultimately became its own company focused on developing officiating and review tech. Owl AI was recently honored as one of our latest 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies at SBJ Tech Week earlier this month.
“We are a more agile brand and can lean into tech,” Kiley told me last week. “So that’s definitely something that’s come from Jeremy, that we need to embrace technology to be able to grow at pace.
“I am going to integrate into all facets of what I do, whether it’s market targeting, how we extract data of where we’re going and why, whether it’s venue mapping or course development.”
While so much of his job will go toward the scouting and relationship building to foster footholds for future X Games events, it will also come with the navigation of a complex mix of schedules and game variables (such as weather conditions, various federations and conflicting events). Kiley sees an opportunity to lean on venue mapping tools — trying to determine which host site can also support a ski slope will be a distinct wrinkle — and a scheduling tool could eventually yield an enhanced process that helps the X Games recognize and capitalize on growing interest and move more quickly toward its expansion plans.
“There could be some serious standardization of how we go about developing our production and creating some efficiencies there,” Kiley said. “... We’re going to have to work alongside other properties in the market and make sure that we can host the number of events that we are looking to scale to.
“We’re giving opportunities to athletes to participate, but we’re also going to put a heavy schedule out there for them in a period of time, so we need to make sure that works and you have athlete adoption because without the stars and the core athletes, then our property is less attractive.”
