Action Sports Gets Its First Draft Night
The MoonPay X Games League holds its inaugural Winter Draft tonight — Wednesday, September 16 — at Cosm Los Angeles, with the event running from 7 to 9 p.m. PT. Four regionally-based clubs will each select ten athletes — five men and five women — from a pool of more than 180 elite ski and snowboard competitors, assembling the rosters that will contest the XGL's first-ever winter season in early 2027. The draft streams live on ESPN+, the Roku Sports Channel and the X Games YouTube channel.
The format mirrors a professional sports draft in most key respects: five rounds, snake order, with each club making one male and one female selection per round. More than 180 athletes from across freestyle skiing and snowboarding have opted into the eligible pool, spanning disciplines from slopestyle and big air to halfpipe and knucklehuck.
The Four Clubs and Their General Managers
The four XGL Winter Clubs are led by well-known figures from action sports. XC Golden State — representing the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe corridor — is managed by 1998 Olympic moguls gold medalist Jonny Moseley. XC New York is led by Dave Sypniewski, XC Park City by Sharalee "Haze" Hazen, and XC Whistler by Ryan Stutt. Each GM has been building their knowledge of the draft pool ahead of tonight's selections.
Eileen Gu and Kokomo Murase Headline a Star-Studded Pool
Eileen Gu — the most decorated freestyle skier in Olympic history, with three gold medals from Beijing 2022 among her six Olympic medals — is widely expected to go first overall. The Bay Area native's connection to XC Golden State has generated considerable speculation about where she might land, though the draft order has not been released ahead of the picks.
Other high-profile eligible athletes include Japan's Kokomo Murase, who claimed big air gold and slopestyle bronze at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics; Estonia's Kelly Sildaru; Canada's Mark McMorris; Alex Hall; Scotty James; Zeb Powell; and Luca Harrington. The breadth of the eligible pool gives each club legitimate options to build a competitive, globally marketable roster.
A Three-Stop Season That Reaches Europe
The 2027 XGL Winter Season opens January 29–31 at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colorado. The second stop moves to WinSport's Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Alberta, on February 19–21 — coinciding with what organizers have announced as X Games Calgary. The season closes at Ruka, Finland, April 9–11, marking the first time the X Games League reaches Europe in its winter format.
The summer XGL, which launched earlier in 2026 with a skateboard-focused format, demonstrated that a team-based, franchise model could draw both athlete interest and broadcast audiences. Tonight's draft extends that experiment to the snow side of action sports — and the presence of Eileen Gu, Kokomo Murase and a deep field of Olympic medallists signals that the league has secured the calibre of talent needed to make the format credible. Full draft results will be available on xgames.com after the broadcast concludes.