ESPN8 The Ocho

The concept of ESPN8 originated as a fictional television channel in the 2004 film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, in which it was a full-time channel showcasing obscure competitions (its name being a comic exaggeration, since at the time there were only four linear ESPN channels—ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS and ESPN Classic; the fifth, ESPNU, launched a year after the film). Its nickname "The Ocho" was a play on ESPN2's 1990s nickname "The Deuce."[3][1]

Starting August 8, 2017, ESPN paid homage to its lampooned portrayal in Dodgeball by airing a day-long "ESPN8: The Ocho" marathon on its college sports channel ESPNU as a way to fill airtime on the channel during colleges' summer vacations when no sports are played. The 2017 airing was a success, prompting ESPN to repeat the block the next year, this time licensing the Dodgeball film from 20th Century Fox for inclusion in the block (ESPN's parent company would buy 20th Century Fox the next year); it made some other adjustments to the 2018 schedule, including heavier editing to shorten each sport's time slot, hoping to accommodate short attention spans.[2]

Due to a lack of live sports programming during the COVID-19 pandemic, ESPN announced on March 22, 2020, that it would reprise the stunt earlier than scheduled on ESPN2.[4] It did it on May 2, 2020, on ESPN, and then August 8, 2020, on ESPN2 as well as the Big Screen in Fortnite Party Royale. A collection of sports that were featured on ESPN8, as well as the ESPN8 broadcast on these said networks, were available on the ESPN app.

The program was held again on ESPN2 on August 3, 2023.[5][6]

The tongue-in-cheek inclusion of such sports on ESPN's schedule has led to increased exposure opportunities for those sports, which have performed well for ESPN. ESPN added a cornhole tournament airing in July 2018 outside the block, which it noted outdrew the WNBA All-Star Game, regular season Major League Baseball games and the final stage of the Tour de France among the key demographic of men age 18 to 49.[1] The inclusion of the Excel World Championships, an eSport that involves using spreadsheet programs in a competition to solve a series of problems, helped give the contest mainstream attention and credibility.[7]

• ESPN
• ABC's Wide World of Sports