For the fourth straight year Saturday, fans of obscure sports will get their fix, with ESPN 8: The Ocho offering a variety of events ranging from cornhole to robot fighting.
The Ocho was first brought to life in 2004 as a gag in the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. It took 13 years for ESPN to take advantage of sports fans' desire for out-of-the-box events, but it has since become an annual highlight on the network calendar.
Some of Saturday's events will be familiar to sports fans who were trying find content when all leagues were shut down earlier this year.
ESPN 8: The Ocho Viewing Information
Date: Saturday, Aug. 8
Start Time: 9 a.m. ET
Networks: ESPN, ESPNEWS, ESPN3, ESPN app
Events
Johnsonville ACL Cornhole Championships: 2020 Kickoff Battle at 4 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Fortnite Party Royale at 9 a.m. ET (ESPN app, Party Royale on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, Windows, iOs, Android)
In addition to those events, ESPN 8 will also be replaying several events from past two years of The Ocho. Notable highlights will include the Death Diving World Championship, Stupid Robot Fighting League and Classic Tetris World Championship.
ESPN's official release about the event noted gamers will also be able to catch a rebroadcast from the Party Royale beginning at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon.
Cornhole was one of the first live sporting events to take place in North America during the pandemic. ESPN aired four hours of Cornhole Mania 2020 on May 9.
"This season, we didn't anticipate being able to have live linear opportunities," ACL commissioner and founder Stacey Moore told Variety's Daniel Holloway. "Now we're faced with the opportunity of potentially doing live on linear for seven weeks in a row, if all things go right."
Holloway noted that May's event marked the third time cornhole has gone live on ESPN television since the network signed a rights deal with the ACL in 2017.
This will mark the first partnership between ESPN and Fortnite since the Party Royale mode launched in April. Gamers who want to take a break from competing will be able to settle down and watch things like robots fighting, college spikeball or the Golden Tee World Championship.
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