Chris Stiepock

Chris Stiepock
Vice President & General Manager - X Games Franchise

Chris Stiepock was named vice president & general manager X Games franchise in June 2008, responsible for growing the X franchise both domestically and globally. He manages the organization and execution of ESPN’s owned, organized and televised events, including the X Games, Winter X Games, all International X Games events, and multiple platform extensions. Stiepock also oversees action sports programming on ESPN’s networks, including ESPN’s 24/7 action sports website ESPN.com/Action.

Prior to his current position, since January 2005 Stiepock served as General Manager of the X Games. In that role, Stiepock led the development, organization and operations for all aspects of the two U.S. based X Games events, multiple X Games events held in international markets, and all brand initiatives.

Stiepock has worked for ESPN since October 1994, when he was hired as the director of marketing and communications for what was then called the Extreme Games. He continued in this capacity, adding the Winter X Games and several auxiliary events to his responsibilities until being promoted to general manager of the ESPN Original Entertainment Events department in January 2001.

In 2006, Sports Business Journal named Stiepock the fifth most influential person in the action sports industry. And he is largely credited for helping to make the X Games one of the most recognized action sports brands in the world.

Prior to his work at ESPN, Stiepock was a freelance journalist, an advertising account executive, a marketing and communications director for the World Scholar-Athlete Games, and a marketing consultant to the Irish Basketball Association in Dublin, Ireland.

Stiepock has a master’s degree in business administration in International Sports Management from the University of Rhode Island, and earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from Wesleyan University, where he was the captain of the men’s basketball team.