Progressive prime-time revolution
Anyone who considers themselves a fan of modern winter sports like snowboarding or freeskiing undoubtedly knows the Winter X Games. Held every year – usually in January – in Aspen, Colorado, they serve as a key showcase of the very best in Big Air, Slopestyle, SuperPipe, and many other disciplines. A significant portion of the programme takes place in the evening and at night, meaning the event is designed from the start for television prime time. The schedule is carefully planned well in advance to fit ABC and ESPN broadcast slots while also accommodating streaming on ESPN platforms. This setup aligns with the established aesthetics of the event and explains the enormous interest from advertisers wanting to be visible at an event of this scale.
Video: Winter X Games Aspen: Mind of the Rider
However, none of them can hope to overshadow the dominant influence of Austrian Red Bull at the Winter X Games. In this ecosystem, the brand doesn’t just act as an advertiser. It also sponsors athletes, produces branded content, and plays an active role in creating the unique atmosphere of the entire action sports showcase. Red Bull’s promotional activities aren’t limited to traditional TV spots. More often, they take the form of short vignettes profiling athletes and adrenaline-fueled highlight reels from the competitions. These formats work exceptionally well for the X Games: they don’t interrupt the pace of the events; on the contrary, they amplify it and add an extra boost of energy – much like a sip of the namesake drink.
Video: X Games Aspen 2023
Moreover, Red Bull doesn’t present itself primarily through its product, but as one of the core sources of the event’s identity and “energy.” In many formats, the product appears only briefly, or sometimes not at all. The focus is elsewhere: storytelling through visuals, music, and sound design, with minimal spoken words, and an emphasis on ‘hero moments’ that capture tricks, landings, and the crowd’s ecstatic reactions. This is all enhanced by the distinctive aesthetics of nighttime lights under a dark sky and snow that literally traces movement in the air. The motif of the snowcat also appears repeatedly, symbolising Red Bull’s ability to push the limits of what’s possible – an ethos that is, after all, the very DNA of the X Games.
Elegant winter classic
The Alpine Ski World Cup, organised under the International Ski Federation (FIS), is a far more traditional format compared to the innovative X Games. This, however, does not make it any less prestigious. On the contrary, it has long been one of the most prestigious and premium sporting products of the winter season. It represents the highest international circuit in alpine skiing, and some of its regular stops, such as Kitzbühel or Wengen, are rightly considered winter classics that fans eagerly anticipate every year. This premium environment extends to advertisers as well. The World Cup’s identity is built on a combination of tradition, prestige, and Alpine aesthetics.
Video: Audi x FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2025
The German automaker Audi has maintained a long-term partnership with the FIS World Cup. The collaboration began in 2002 and has served as a natural connection between the brand and the event environment. Alpine skiing is all about control in challenging conditions, and Audi leverages themes of stability, grip, and confidence in winter driving in its communication. On television, this often appears subtly. An ad aired after a race doesn’t feel like an abrupt cut to a different world, as it builds visually and conceptually on what the viewer has just seen. The transition from the alpine course flows seamlessly into the winter landscape, where another story unfolds, just in a different mode.
Video: A season of precision and performance | Audi x FIS Ski World Cup
Audi holds the title sponsorship and naming rights for the Alpine circuit, meaning the series is officially presented as the Audi FIS Ski World Cup, and this name appears in FIS materials and documents provided to the organisers of individual stops. The partnership also includes exclusivity in the automotive category within the sponsorship portfolio, helping maintain brand consistency. In addition, there are specific event formats long associated with Audi, such as the season opener in Sölden, promoted as the Audi FIS Ski World Cup Opening. In practice, this means that Audi doesn’t appear merely as a logo, but it is integrated into the series’ name, visual identity, and accompanying communications.
New Year’s hockey showcase
“How you start the New Year sets the tone for the rest of it,” the saying goes. That’s exactly what fans of American ice hockey want, and the NHL has been making it happen for nearly two decades. Every year, around the turn of the year, the NHL hosts the Winter Classic, an outdoor regular-season game played in an open-air stadium and styled as a festive league-wide event. The series kicked off on 1 January 2008, with the first game at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, where the Buffalo Sabres faced the Pittsburgh Penguins in front of over 71,000 spectators. The NHL has long framed this event as a New Year’s tradition of the televised winter season.
Video: 2015 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic
Since 2009, the Winter Classic has had a long-term partnership with tyre manufacturer Bridgestone, which also served as the title sponsor for several years. The connection is straightforward: winter tyres address in practice the same things that are on display on the ice each period – grip, control, and stability. This is reflected in winter ads and visual parallels between the ice rink and a snow-covered road. Additionally, the Winter Classic naturally provides a festive New Year’s setting, including the journey to the stadium and the trip home, making it an ideal context for promoting winter tyres without the need for complex narrative constructions.
Video: Bridgestone Blizzak WS80 TV Spot, '2015 NHL Winter Classic'
A clear example of this approach is the 2015 TV ad for the Bridgestone Blizzak WS80. The spot uses typical winter visuals and draws a parallel between confidence on the road and confidence of movement on the ice during the NHL Winter Classic. This isn’t just a generic winter ad placed at random; it is a format creatively and strategically timed in both media and messaging. In addition to traditional ads, Bridgestone appears in formats typical for American sports broadcasts, such as “presented by” sponsorship messages, graphic transitions, or short branded segments during breaks. The combination of classic spots and sponsorship formats demonstrates how a sporting event can be leveraged for a natural, contextually integrated product presentation.
Curator of snowboarding culture
The Burton US Open is, without exaggeration, a snowboarding classic. It was first held in 1982 under the name National Snowboarding Championships in Vermont, and from the start, it was one of the events that helped establish snowboarding as a serious competitive sport, many years before it became part of the Olympic programme. In 1985, the competition moved to Stratton Mountain and gradually became known under the Burton US Open brand. Throughout its history, it has been a place not just for “racing” runs, but also for progressive disciplines like halfpipe and slopestyle. Its significance goes beyond tradition: it consistently hosts the world’s top athletes, serves as a platform for major moments and new tricks, and for fans, it’s an event that’s simply unmissable during the winter season.
Video: Burton TV Spot, 'Best in Snow'
Unsurprisingly, the Burton US Open is organised by the snowboard manufacturer Burton Snowboards. The event has long positioned itself more as a cultural platform than just a sporting competition. In addition to the contests, it offers accompanying programmes, concerts, demo parks, and meet-and-greets with athletes. In practice, it resembles a festival of snowboarding culture, which is a very strong marketing position for Burton. At the core of its communication are branded films, recap videos, and other original content focused more on the community’s atmosphere and identity than on product promotion. These formats can then be easily repurposed across channels – from social media and YouTube to televised sports segments – because they don’t feel like traditional advertising, but as a natural extension of the event.
Video: Beyond the Competition: Good Times for All at the 2020 Burton U·S·Open
This is particularly evident in the way Burton has long relied on official recap films, highlights, and accompanying content. Instead of product-focused ads, several-minute-long edits of final runs in the halfpipe and slopestyle are produced, complemented by footage of the audience, behind-the-scenes moments, and the atmosphere of the entire week, feeling more like a lifestyle film than a traditional sports broadcast. Official livestreams and broadcasts with media partners work similarly: Burton appears in graphics, at the start, or in interviews, but the main focus is on snowboarding culture and community. The product is presented more organically as part of the gear, while the marketing emphasis remains on the identity and the sense of a unique world that fans can enter.
Guaranteed warmth even when it is freezing outside
The Biathlon World Cup, organised by the International Biathlon Union (IBU), is one of the most-watched winter sports series in Europe and, in terms of popularity, often ranks among the very top outside of the Olympic Games. The competitions run from December to March and are hosted by traditional winter resorts such as Oberhof, Ruhpolding, and Antholz. For television audiences, they offer a familiar winter landscape, where the calm of the surroundings and the rhythm of the course alternate with the dynamism and tension at the shooting range. It is precisely the combination of endurance and precision that gives biathlon an appealing, easily understandable narrative for viewers.
Video: "Was macht Viessmann?" – Biathlon Antholz
The German technology company Viessmann, which specialises in heating systems and other energy solutions, has long been associated with this environment. For the brand, the partnership is a logical choice: biathlon is a sport where temperature, conditions, and overall management of energy in the broadest sense play a crucial role. The collaboration doesn’t come across merely as a media buy, but as a thematically natural connection between a brand that deals with warmth and efficient energy use and an event taking place in a real winter climate.
Video: Denise Herrmann-Wick | Neubau mit Wärmepumpe
Specifically, this partnership is reflected primarily in broadcast formats. The Viessmann logo is visible on course barriers, at the shooting range, and in the finish area of the BMW IBU Biathlon World Cup races, ensuring the brand remains present throughout the event rather than appearing only in commercial breaks. This is complemented by “presented by” sponsorship messages, graphic transitions, and other broadcast-related elements that keep the brand within the context of the action. The result is a communication model in which Viessmann becomes a natural and continuous part of the winter sports environment, rather than entering it solely through a traditional TV ad.
These examples clearly show that winter sports events are not just media space for brands – they are, above all, meaningful frameworks. Each event has its own atmosphere, visual identity, and an audience that knows exactly why they are watching. Successful brands don’t try to overpower this world; they enter it with respect and a logical, understandable approach. For marketers, this offers a simple but crucial lesson: the best sports advertising often isn’t created by slapping a brand onto an established event, but by allowing it to become a natural part of that world. When a creative concept is rooted in the environment in which the sport takes place and respects its aesthetics and values, advertising doesn’t feel like an interruption – it feels like a continuation of the experience. And this is precisely where the greatest power of winter sports events lies for brands.