The
Louisiana State Tigers won 38–24 over the
Ohio State Buckeyes to win the BCS National Championship, thus becoming the first two-time BCS National Champions, and the first BCS titlists with two losses in a single season.
September 7 – In the
New England Patriots' season opener, quarterback
Tom Brady suffers a torn
ACL that ruled him out for the season, a year after he led the Patriots to a 16–0 record (the first undefeated team since the NFL's 16-game expansion in 1978) and a
Super Bowl XLII appearance.
September 21 –
The New England Patriots lost to
the Miami Dolphins to end their NFL-record 21-game regular-season winning streak dating back to December 2006, which coincidentally, was also against the Dolphins.
December 28 – The Miami Dolphins finish 11-5 and become the first team in NFL history to win their division after winning only one game
the year before, and it also marked the last non-Patriot division title in the
AFC East until the 2020 NFL season.
The Detroit Lions became the first team since
the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers to lose all their regular season games. They lost an NFL record 16 games during the season. The Lions would be joined by the
Cleveland Browns9 years later as the second team to go winless since the NFL expanded to a 16-game schedule in 1978.
For the first time in both
World Series and post-season history, a contest is suspended during an official game as
Game Five is halted in the sixth inning with a tie score of 2–2 between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies at
Citizens Bank Park. The game resumes two days later and the Phillies clinch their second World Championship with a 4–3 victory, winning the
2008 World Series in five games. Cole Hamels was named the
World Series Most Valuable Player.
The
Detroit Shock would win their 3rd championship in franchise history after sweeping the league-best
San Antonio Silver Stars in the
2008 WNBA Finals. It was the first sweep in the finals in a best-of-5 series.
February 23 –
Wladimir Klitschko defeats WBO heavyweight champion
Sultan Ibragimov at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to unify the IBF and WBO Heavyweight titles. The Klitschko-Ibragimov fight was the first heavyweight unification bout since Holyfield-Lewis in 1999.
March 8 –
David Haye achieves a TKO of
Enzo Maccarinelli in the second round in a unification fight for the
WBC,
WBA and
WBO cruiserweight titles.
June 28 –
Manny Pacquiao defeats
David Díaz via 9th-round knockout to take the WBC lightweight crown, his 4th world title in 4 divisions.
October 18 –
Bernard Hopkins beats then-undefeated
Kelly Pavlik via unanimous decision. Throughout the fight, Hopkins, although 17 years older than Pavlik, managed to outwork and outhustle Pavlik throughout the fight.
Tiger Woods wins the
2008 U.S. Open Golf Championship over
Rocco Mediate following an eighteen-hole playoff which they tie at even par. This forces a sudden death playoff on the seventh hole and Woods makes a par to Mediate's bogey.
August 7 –
Federation of International Lacrosse, the new unified governing body for the sport, holds its first meeting. The body was formed with the merger of the former governing bodies for the men's and
women's versions, respectively the International Lacrosse Federation and International Federation of Women's Lacrosse Associations.[8]