The Spanish Steps of Rome. The Inca stairs at Machu Picchu. The Shakespeare Steps of West 167th Street in the Bronx.
And now, the Slippery Stairs.
Since 2019, ESPN 8: The Ocho’s version of the “Stairway to Heaven” has been a 38-step skyscraper of vinyl-wrapped plywood that has both thrilled and humbled humans as they have attempted to race — or, more wisely, watched other people attempt to race — to the top of that slick, staggered stage in search of summit splendor.
The Slippery Stairs are equal parts sport, entertainment and idiocy, all coated in a too-generous helping of clear slickness that one can only find in the family planning aisle of their local drug store.
The challenge is simple only in explanation. Competitors ascend the stairs in a group, with the shared goal of being the first to ring the big brass bell that waits on the platform at the top. They can use whatever mode of ascension that they feel works best, as long as they do not touch the sides of the roughly 10-foot-wide staircase or attempt to dig their fingers and hands into any seams they might find in the vinyl.
Past that, it is basically a KY-covered Hunger Games, with competitors grabbing each other as they climb, seeking either some sort of anchor to save themselves, or loosening the grip and momentum of rivals who stand, er, climb as roadblocks in one’s path of gooey glory.
One wrong move, or one wrongful move made by an opponent, and the result is a teeth-chattering, spine-rattling, butt-breaking washboard of a slide to the bottom of the Slippery Stairs. This sends one back into the pit where the race began, now little more than a wading pool, contained only by the padded walls that serve as both a border for the leaking lubricant and as a catchfence for falling former climbers.
• Watch Slippery Stairs — along with T-Rex racing, diving chess, hacky sack and many other sports — during the 10th anniversary edition of The Ocho, airing through Sunday.
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This slippery stairs competitor absolutely dominates
Slippery Stairs originated as part of — and this will likely be the least surprising fact you read about in this story — a Japanese game show. The program is called “All-Star Thanksgiving” and has aired twice a year, in April and October, for the past 35 years.
A decade ago, AST put a group of contestants in brightly colored wetsuits at the base of a TV studio staircase, placed prizes at the top of that staircase, coated that staircase with slime and yelled “Go!” Almost overnight the images became an internet sensation.
A wise man named Paul J. Higgins, founder and president Athletes in Motion Sports Television, saw those folks busting their collective slippery butts and brought the action to our domestic shores.
For anyone who remembers the early days of ESPN2, that era had a very Slippery Stairs kind of feel to it. The network that was known as “The Deuce” dedicated hours of its daily programming wheel to the likes of skateboarding bloopers and BMX racing. The Olympics of ESPN2 were the X Games — first called the Extreme Games — which debuted in 1995 featuring everything from street luge to synchronized skydiving.
Higgins was a big early programming supplier for The Deuce. With that same spirit, he debuted the Americanized version of Slippery Stairs in 2019, making them steeper and slipperier than the OG Japanese version. The Ocho, which was then only 2 years old, quickly snapped up the stairs as must-see greasy TV. Since 2021, Slippery Stairs have been one of The Ocho’s core events, shown live on-site in Rock Hill, South Carolina. This year it’s been moved to primetime, at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2 from Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando.
There are age divisions, relay races and special challenges; you name it, the Slippery Stairs will try it. It’s an event that is always evolving and growing. This year’s Ocho stop is just one leg of what Higgins has titled the 2026 Primetime Chaos Tour. They’ve even partnered with Mr. Beast.
“If you want to try and tell us that this event isn’t the people, by the people and fun for the people,” Higgins said to me in 2023, “then that, my friend, is a slippery slope.”
If you’re wondering what the Slippery Stairs experience feels like, well, I — and my butt — can tell you firsthand. In 2022 and ’23, The Ocho recruited Marty Smith and myself to host their coverage, and they wanted us to be covered during that coverage with a coating of that slippery stuff. Three years later, I think we finally got all of the oleaginous stuff cleaned out of crevasses and recently recalled the experience on Marty & McGee.
Ryan McGee: First of all, you can’t buy the stuff they use for the Slippery Stairs in the amounts that you need to cover them all. You need gallons of it. It’s like that scene in “Old School” where the pledges inform the Godfather that they can only get it in the tiny tubes.
Marty Smith: So, that’s where the guy with the buckets comes in.
McGee: Yes. They reverse engineered the family planning stuff. There’s only like three ingredients, so they order it in bulk and then they mix it all up in giant hardware store buckets.
Marty: That’s a lot of glycerin, man.
McGee: Like, you expect Homeland Security to show up and ask, “Um, why did you order all of this?”
Marty: And then, after they cover the stairs, they put people at the top and on the halfway platform with Super Soakers filled with that stuff and they shoot it at you. Right at your hands and feet.
McGee: Right. They don’t tell you about that part. And when we did it, we just showed up wearing whatever, like shorts and T-shirts. One year we wore the Average Joes jerseys from “Dodgeball,” the movie The Ocho idea came from. Well, when you get all of that stuff all over you, it soaks through your clothes and makes them transparent. It just showcases your underwear.
Marty: And no shoes. You can’t wear shoes. That’s even more loss of grip.
McGee: Then the actual competitors showed up, and they were in like full-on wetsuits!
Marty: Because they knew what they were doing and we did not. Which was apparent to anyone who saw us busting our asses. And by the way, it hurts. Especially when you hit that bottom wall feetfirst with a full head of speed.
McGee: You broke a toe.
Marty: And you broke your butt.
McGee: I did. The next morning my daughter woke me up and was like, “Dad, what happened to your legs” because my hammys had big bruises on them.
Marty: It’s only because we are idiots. The actual competitors were all totally fine. I did make it to the top, though.
McGee: You did, indeed. But remember, we were live on “SportsCenter” and they missed it, so they asked you do it again. By the time you started back up, they had lubed it all up more. I was like, nope and went and got me a Super Soaker.
Marty: Is that when I got hurt?
McGee: Yes, it is. And that should surprise no one, because as I have said before, you are the Tom Cruise of ESPN. You are totally willing to die for our entertainment.
Marty: Covered in stuff from the family planning aisle.
