KD^3C^3 - 20250803 Was it what you'd only do for me?
A thing I learned about recently, but that has apparently been happening for a while now, is the ESPN8: The Ocho programming block. If you're familiar with the 2004 movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story you might know the name. It was the fictional network where the lowest sport-like activities were presented for viewership, and it was the host to the national Dodgeball League finals. It was a good joke at the time, and it remains a pretty good joke now.
Apparently in 2017, ESPN did a programming block they called the Ocho, in reference to the movie, showcasing the kinds of sports that would appear to be jokes, but were taken very seriously. And over time it became something of an annual tradition where in August, various sport-adjacent activities, are given an enhanced amount of focus where they would likely never get any sort of national-level attention elsewhere.
Not everything that aired on the cable channel is available to stream, but I sampled a few of the shows (Calling them sports seems generous) that are available through the Hulu/Disney/ESPN app and tonally, it was a weird experience. The presentation can't quite manage to get a=over the fact that the whole thing started as a joke, but they really want to.
For example the PFC: Pillow Fight Championship, is an incredibly silly idea, that has been taken very seriously. There are rules (of course there are rules) about how to hold the official PFC pillow, what kinds of hits count, and for how many points. It's played by guys in MMA adjacent spaces, and the one match I watched as between a boxer and a Capoeira practitioner. The Capoeira guy started out by doing a full cartwheel before hitting his opponent. Which is silly. But also worth more points, it turns out. One of the commentators had to repeatedly state how serious this all is, as guys hit each other with pillows, which isn't a great indication that anybody is taking it all that seriously.
I also started watching the Popdarts championship What's Popdarts? That's not a well known playground game or similar being played at a professional level. No it's a manufactured gamewhere you throw suction-cup-tipped darts at a table 20 feet away and the closest to a target wins points. It's a toy. Toys are fun! But this isn't a sport like you would usually expect. This is a thing wholly owned by a single company. You can't find pickup-popdart games out in the world. If you want to play you have to buy an official kit from the popdarts company. But here's the real indicator that it's not serious: They only had three players in the tournament. Based on the videos package they played at the beginning, these three guys all know eachother, and stream popdarts games on twitch or youtube. They had to have a pre-competition to get the 4th competitor in the finals. They had a dozen guys chuckin' popdarts at a target, and the eventual winner was the dad of one of the other guys in the tournament. It's not a particularly large community of players is the point I'm trying to make. Add to that the fact that, the "best in the world" popdarts players seemed to my eyes to not be very good, and this whole thing came off like a marketing stunt more than a real sport. I know ESPN8 isn't about real sports, so it's fine, but I don't love being marketed to.
The last "sport" I watched was Extreme Archery, or Archery Tag, it was called both and a distinction was not made. This game is dodgeball but with bows and foam tipped arrows. If you hit a player on the other team you get a point. If you catch an arrow you get three points. It's dodgeball with bows and arrows. I have no notes.
Apparently in 2017, ESPN did a programming block they called the Ocho, in reference to the movie, showcasing the kinds of sports that would appear to be jokes, but were taken very seriously. And over time it became something of an annual tradition where in August, various sport-adjacent activities, are given an enhanced amount of focus where they would likely never get any sort of national-level attention elsewhere.
Not everything that aired on the cable channel is available to stream, but I sampled a few of the shows (Calling them sports seems generous) that are available through the Hulu/Disney/ESPN app and tonally, it was a weird experience. The presentation can't quite manage to get a=over the fact that the whole thing started as a joke, but they really want to.
For example the PFC: Pillow Fight Championship, is an incredibly silly idea, that has been taken very seriously. There are rules (of course there are rules) about how to hold the official PFC pillow, what kinds of hits count, and for how many points. It's played by guys in MMA adjacent spaces, and the one match I watched as between a boxer and a Capoeira practitioner. The Capoeira guy started out by doing a full cartwheel before hitting his opponent. Which is silly. But also worth more points, it turns out. One of the commentators had to repeatedly state how serious this all is, as guys hit each other with pillows, which isn't a great indication that anybody is taking it all that seriously.
I also started watching the Popdarts championship What's Popdarts? That's not a well known playground game or similar being played at a professional level. No it's a manufactured gamewhere you throw suction-cup-tipped darts at a table 20 feet away and the closest to a target wins points. It's a toy. Toys are fun! But this isn't a sport like you would usually expect. This is a thing wholly owned by a single company. You can't find pickup-popdart games out in the world. If you want to play you have to buy an official kit from the popdarts company. But here's the real indicator that it's not serious: They only had three players in the tournament. Based on the videos package they played at the beginning, these three guys all know eachother, and stream popdarts games on twitch or youtube. They had to have a pre-competition to get the 4th competitor in the finals. They had a dozen guys chuckin' popdarts at a target, and the eventual winner was the dad of one of the other guys in the tournament. It's not a particularly large community of players is the point I'm trying to make. Add to that the fact that, the "best in the world" popdarts players seemed to my eyes to not be very good, and this whole thing came off like a marketing stunt more than a real sport. I know ESPN8 isn't about real sports, so it's fine, but I don't love being marketed to.
The last "sport" I watched was Extreme Archery, or Archery Tag, it was called both and a distinction was not made. This game is dodgeball but with bows and foam tipped arrows. If you hit a player on the other team you get a point. If you catch an arrow you get three points. It's dodgeball with bows and arrows. I have no notes.