SLS Miami 2026: Who’s going to tear up the Watsco Center on Sunday?
Sunday, May 3. Watsco Center. $103,000 on the line and 20 riders who are going to feel the heat in front of unforgiving judges. The SLS is back on the East Coast, and let me tell you right now: the second round of the 2026 season is going to separate the real ones from the tourists.
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The Miami Stakes: Why This Round Really Matters
The 2026 tour kicked off in Sydney in February, then Downtown LA on April 4. Miami is the third stop, and it’s also the only East Coast stop of the regular season before the circus heads to Sao Paulo in August. The ranking is built here, now, and whoever misses Miami will be playing catch-up until the end of the year.
The Watsco Center isn’t Berrics. Not EMB either. It’s a University of Miami basketball arena transformed into a contest park for 48 hours, with 7,000 standing spots and a course designed to smash records in the final. Last year, Nyjah Huston landed his 103rd nine-club score there, with a nollie flip back lip that looked more like a signature than a contest trick. Rayssa Leal won on the women’s side with a score that humiliated half the field.
And that’s the point. Since 2023, Miami has become the spot where the OGs reclaim their throne — and where the newcomers try to snatch the crown in four runs. Want to know who’s on fire this year? Watch what happens on Sunday.
The Favorites: Can Nyjah Go Back-to-Back?
Nyjah Huston arrives in Miami with a bit of a strange status: he’s 30, he’s won everything, he could hang it up tomorrow and no one would blame him. Except he keeps going. And he keeps landing tricks no one else lands in contests. That double set he’s been chasing since 2024? We’re expecting it here. If Miami is a revival for him, this is the arena where he’ll make it happen.
Yuto Horigome, that’s the other story. Two-time Olympic champion, ice-cold technician, he skates like an accelerated Daewon Song. He finished second in LA three weeks ago. On this kind of fast course with a ramp and a central manual pad, he’s dangerous. Jamie Foy remains the underdog we love — he lands 50-50 grinds on rails no one else touches, and he smiles doing it.
On the women’s side, the duel between Rayssa Leal and Chloe Covell picks up where it left off. The Brazilian is 18, she’s been skateboarding since she was 7, and she’s turned every SLS round into a masterclass since 2022. The 15-year-old Australian kid isn’t scared of her. She beat her in Sydney in February with a kickflip back tail bigspin out that broke the internet. If you miss this duel on Sunday, you’re missing the future of women’s contest skateboarding.
2026 Format: What the X Games Partnership Changes
This year, the SLS officially became the organizer of street skateboarding for all four annual X Games events. What that means: the 20 league pros automatically enter, and a local Select Series adds one wild card per stop. That means you’ll see some faces you don’t know yet, but who earned their spot through serious qualifiers.
The format remains the one we know: two 45-second runs, then five best tricks scored out of 10. The total of the two best runs plus the two best tricks makes up the score. A simple, clear system that prevents a rider from betting everything on one trick and winning by chance. That’s also why the SLS changed contest skateboarding in 2010 — Rob Dyrdek wanted a format that rewarded consistency, not luck.
An unnoticed but significant change: the 10 regular and 10 goofy skaters are separated into heats before the final. The pros don’t like it (Nyjah said so publicly), but it forces intra-stance matchups we’ve never seen before.
The Nosk8 Prediction
If we were betting on Sunday, we’d put our money on Yuto Horigome for the men. Why? Because Nyjah at home on the East Coast is too expected, and SLS judges often punish the favorite in the second round. Yuto has the technical consistency to stack four 8.5 tricks without falling, which is enough 90% of the time to make it to the final.
For the women: Chloe Covell. The kid is on fire, she has no pressure from past wins, and she takes risks that Rayssa no longer takes since becoming world number 1. Classic move: the young gun taking down the champion.
But whatever. If Nyjah shows up with his nollie flip back lip and lands it on the first try, we’ll pack up our theories and applaud. As usual. The broadcast is on the SLS YouTube channel and ESPN+ in the US; tune in Sunday, May 3 at 10 PM French time. Put a beer in the fridge.
