Hei 黑 'hey' - means black. It's not racist to refer to it as 'heyball' combining it's place of origin with a more commonly/universal language as a play on words, and I'd say, living here, eight is not a commonly mispronounced word...
It's more an attempt to appeal to outside audience who would treat it with even more distain if they called it 黑球 hei qiu 'hey cho' ('muricans aren't the best at attempting to pronounce anything correctly, not even English

)
If anything, giving it the name they would probably prefer to call it, would see even less people willing to play it. As sadly, that is the kind of world we live in...
I like playing Chinese-8, but can't help but see it as WPA ditching out and accepting they have lost American table based games, and looking to pursue the money by creating something/seeking alliance with something that can over shadow MR... that's a lot of F money... and a game that appeals to all walks of cue sports life (multiple backgrounds)
I am noticing a few of the strongholds for American tables in Shanghai are making more investment into Chinese tables... seems counter-productive in my opinion, as they should just solidify themselves as the mainstays for American tables... There's Chinese 8-tables in every hall already and people come to these places already solely because they are interested in American tables...