True Stories #431 - Let the Games Begin

A decades-old comedy movie gave birth to one of the most epic "sports" networks of all time.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Seth Andrews, and what you're about to hear is
a true story. ESPN the international multi platform sports media
company which launched on September seventh, nineteen seventy nine, known
then as the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, which of

(00:26):
course was soon shortened to ESPN. Today, the network is
owned by Disney and it broadcasts to seventy million households
in the US alone. It also operates regional channels in Africa, Australia,
Latin America, the Netherlands, Canada, and elsewhere, and it is
considered by many sports fans as the network for games

(00:49):
and commentary on pro and college football, basketball, baseball, tennis, MMA, fighting,
and much more. And the platform has diversified. There are
several networks to choose from ESPN two, ESPN News, the
SEC Network, which covers football's Southeastern Conference. The ACC covers

(01:11):
the Atlantic Coast Conference. But wait, what is this? ESPN
eight The OHO. Now, this is a concept that actually
started out as a gag. Anybody who was seeing the
two thousand and four Vince Vaughan comedy movie Dodgeball remembers
that those dodgeball games were broadcast on the then fictional

(01:35):
ESPN eight The o Show. It was a punchline, just
a funny part of the movie. But on the eighth
of August twenty seventeen, the actual ESPN showcased a day
long marathon of various events packaged as ESPN eight The Oho.
They were just filling empty time in the college football

(01:56):
off season, but the ratings were pretty good. This single
day of eclectic programming was repeated in May of twenty
twenty and then again in August of that year, and
the stuff they were putting on the air got more
and more attention, until finally the network launched the full
time twenty four to seven official streaming service, ESPN eight

(02:20):
The Ojo, a channel with a sense of humor featuring
sports that are usually just backyard games and crazy theater,
and they are awesome. Why limit yourself to the Pittsburgh Steelers,
the Dallas Mavericks, the Detroit Red Wings when you can
tune in to watch honed and epic competitors competing in

(02:43):
pulse pounding must see events like frisbee golf, Corgie racing
at Emerald Downs, gum bubble blowing, whiffleball, freestyle, trampoline, pillow fighting,
the donk top, which is cow patty throwing underwater, chess

(03:04):
foot golf where you kick a soccer ball into a
giant cup as if you were putting on a green,
and of course dodgeball like the dodgeball that you and
I played in junior high with those big red flying
projectiles that strike with such a distinctive sound. Now this
is my kind of programming. I mean, who would not

(03:25):
want to spend thirty minutes glued to the television for
the World Championships of Rock Skipping. Oh yeah. Contestants take flat,
slippery stones and they do what you and I do
when we're standing on the shore of a lake or
a creek. They just zip the rocks over the surface
of the water and count the skips. The most skips

(03:47):
wins the trophy. There is mail boat jumping. That's a
sport that reflects the real life world of mail delivery
where postal workers have to serve people who live around water.
They will hop on a boat and they will stop
at lake cabin docks. They will jump out, deliver letters,
retrieve out going mail, and then jump back into a

(04:09):
boat that is still moving. That's a sport on the
YOA show. Have you ever heard those auctioneers who can
babble at one hundred miles an hour? ESPN has a
competition for that too. Contestants are judged not just on
mouth movement, speed, articulation, and rhythm, but also on clothing,

(04:29):
body language, and even whether or not they've got a
good handshake. And yes, I do have a short audio
clip from the twenty twenty three Auctioneers Championship. I mean,
how can you hear that level of skill and not

(04:50):
stand in awe? And how could you not love a
channel that brings into your living room the joys of
dogs surfing outouse races, And yet even a competition for
the world's greatest mullet oh let, the world suffocates on
its snobbery let the athletic elite huff and puff and

(05:12):
dismiss our enjoyment of fling, golf, robot fighting and arcade
basketball pop a shot. Those people will never know the
joys of watching the sports beyond the sports satellite. It
out to an entire planet as a concept that more
than two decades ago with just a gag in a

(05:32):
movie script. Indeed, there are few things as great as
the games on the eighth and that's a true story.
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