Shaun White’s ‘Snow League’: 36 Athletes Launch Into First Competition This Weekend

The halfpipe at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colo., is about to see some elite action. This Friday, athletes from around the world will descend upon the course to compete in the first leg of Shaun White’s brand-new, year-round snow sports competition: The Snow League. It’s an event exclusively dedicated to snowboarding and freeskiing and will be broadcast live on NBC Sports and Peacock.

Big names in the snowsports world will show up. That includes Alessandro Barbieri (USA), Brooke D’Hondt (Canada), Ayumu Hirano (Japan), Gaon Choi (South Korea), Valentino Guseli (New Zealand), Jiayu Liu (China), Maddie Mastro (USA), and many other heavy hitters. All told, 20 men and 16 women will be competing this weekend.

Buttermilk’s competition will be the first of four events between now and March 2026. The second Snow League competition will be at Yunding Secret Garden Resort in China on Dec. 4, 2025. Then, it will return to Aspen Snowmass in Colorado from Feb. 26 to 28, 2026, and the last leg of the competition will be in Laax, Switzerland, from March 19 to 21, 2026.

You might notice that only snowboarders are competing in this first event. Freeskiing will commence at The Snow League’s second competition at Yunding Secret Garden Resort.

“The Snow League brings to life the kind of unified global competition I could only dream of during my career,” White said in a news release. “We’ve already assembled the best athletes and are now delivering on our promise to host competitions at world-class resorts.”

White said that every stop on The Snow League’s schedule was designed with the athletes in mind. As for the destination halfpipes he chose, White said, “I’ve personally had the pleasure of competing in all of them over the years.”

The Snow League: Event Format

The Thursday before the competition will be a practice day for the athletes. But at 9:40 a.m. MST on Friday, the Snow League will start with the women’s qualifying heats, followed by the men’s at 12:10 p.m.

At 2:10 p.m. and 2:40 p.m. on Friday, respectively, the women and men will have their “Last Chance Qualifiers.”

All athletes will take two runs on Friday and keep their highest score. The athlete with the top score from each heat automatically advances to the Finals Day on Saturday. The remaining athletes will compete in the Last Chance Qualifier for second and third position in the Finals. Any athlete ranked below third position will be eliminated after that.

The Finals will be held on Saturday and will include the quarterfinals, semifinals, finals, and awards ceremony. Quarterfinals run from 9:40 to 11:10 a.m. The women’s semifinals will be at 11:50 a.m., and the women’s finals will take place at 12:20 p.m. The men’s semifinals will be at 12:10 p.m., and the finals will be at 1:40 p.m.

The event will wrap up at 2:20 p.m. with a musical performance by rapper Big Boi.

On Finals Day, eight men and eight women will compete head-to-head for their spot on the podium (and for the prize purses). Each athlete is required to drop into both the right- and left-hand wall in their first two runs of the Finals. The first athlete to win two of three runs advances to the next round. Whoever wins both of their head-to-head matchups will become the first champion of the Aspen Snowmass Snow League competition.

And the prize purses? First place will walk away with $50,000. The second-place athlete will receive $20,000, and third place will get $10,000.

Purchasing Tickets & How to Watch

Tickets for the Snow League event are on sale and available through the Snow League website. Friday tickets cost $20, and Finals tickets on Saturday will cost $60.

If you aren’t regionally located and can’t make it to Aspen, Colo., this weekend, you can still watch all of the action at home. NBC Sports signed a multiyear media rights agreement with White to host the competition on its broadcast networks. The two-day event will be live-streamed this weekend on Peacock starting at 9:30 a.m. MST. The recorded competition will air again on the NBC network on March 29 at 11 a.m.

“We hope to inspire the next generation of athletes,” White said of the partnership. “And there is no better platform to help showcase our athletes and their stories than NBC Sports.”

If you are watching from Europe, you’ll have to tune into Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Sports. It will be live-streaming the action on its Max and Discovery+ live-streaming services from March 7 to 8. For more details on the event format, schedule, point system, and prizes, check out The Snow League webpage.