With it being 8/8, ESPN has gone to “The Ocho” branding for ESPN2 for the second-straight year, turning a joke from the 2004 film DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story into a real thing. The whole day will see ESPN2 showing obscure sports, from spikeball to the U.S. Open Ultimate Championships to brat-eating, cornhole, kabbadi and hurling. And of course there’s dodgeball, both normal and on trampolines. It’s the latter, from the recent (last week) Skyzone Ultimate Dodgeball Championships, that produced this highlight of two players being knocked out by a single throw:
I think there’s an appropriate DodgeBall GIF here:
https://twitter.com/keeennyboyyy/status/1027077539544457217
That’s a cool highlight in and of itself, but it’s also interesting that it was tweeted from the main ESPN account (which has a modest 33.6 million followers, and where they’ve changed the profile picture to an Ocho logo). That speaks to the amount of play ESPN is giving this “Ocho” branding day, and it’s notable that many of their social accounts and personalities have already been promoting this:
Three days until #TheOcho returns to ESPN and our ace publicist on the project @kimelchlepp prepped by attending the @WorldDodgeballA World Cup in NYC this wknd. Tune in all day Wed on ESPN2. It's gonna be fun. https://t.co/nJBGAl18UR
— bill hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) August 5, 2018
Embrace #TheOcho. Hey, it has to be better than Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman yelling at each other, right?
[ESPN on Twitter]
It’s already lit on the ocho might be the funniest thing I’ve read in sports for 2018
We don’t think it’s funny-WFTDA
Hush…
Maybe next year the concept can be added to include Obscure Sports Quarterly references.