Photo credit: American Cornhole League
Cody Henderson was in the zone, hitting shot after shot. The 26-year-old engaged the capacity crowd as they cheered his every shot. But this was not on the links of Augusta during The Masters or hardwood of Madison Square Garden during an NBA game. Henderson was firing bean bags at The Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas at the Johnsonville Cornhole Championships in March.
Henderson eventually sunk 19 straight bags during his cornhole match. The warehouse manager, who lives in Jackson, Ohio, is the top-ranked cornhole player in the U.S.
Yes, cornhole, the popular tailgating and backyard game, is now a professional sport with a league (American Cornhole League), TV contract (ESPN), prize money (up to $1 million this season) and comprehensive rankings of players.
College football took center stage on Saturday on ESPN with Alabama and Clemson punching their tickets to the National Championship game, but the best college cornhole players get the ESPN treatment on Sunday. Four hours of programming on ESPN and ESPN2 are headlined by the National College Cornhole Championship from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It crowns the best college team and college alumni team from around the country. The ACL will pay out at least $25,000 in scholarship money.
The man behind the business of cornhole is ACL CEO Stacey Moore, who honed his cornhole game at North Carolina State football tailgates. “I saw tailgating as one of the largest informal industries out there and figured there was a way to capture and profit from that,” says the serial entrepreneur Moore. “I created different types of brands to try and figure out how to capitalize on the tailgating lifestyle.”
Cornhole was the activity that drew the most attention with Moore’s tailgating businesses, so he went all in on the game, which features two platforms, with a hole at the top of each, spaced 27 feet apart. Players throw bags—originally filled with corn but now typically plastic resin—to try and land on the board or in the hole.
Moore and his partners invested more than $1 million in the back-end technology to be able to manage cornhole events and tournaments for all ages and all skill levels across the U.S. “You can’t be a sport without scores and stats, so we went on a mission to create cornhole as a sport, says Moore.
The centralized scoring and stats led to the ACL’s launch three years ago. There were 5,000 events last season under the ACL banner, and there will be as many as 10,000 during the current season, which runs from August to July.
The ACL paid out $250,000 to pros like Henderson last season, and the total payout this season could reach $1 million. Top players make up to $60,000, including payouts from local events.
The ACL derives its revenue from its ESPN deal, sponsorships and memorabilia. There are also 300 directors across the U.S. who operate cornhole tournaments using ACL’s infrastructure. The directors are independent contractors who give a percentage of tournament revenue to the ACL. Tournament entry fees range from $5 to $100. Directors and players also have membership fees, which create a consistent annuity for the ACL.
Professional cornhole got a huge boost through its relationship with ESPN. The first ACL event on the Walt Disney-owned channel was a digital broadcast on ESPN3 in 2016. The sport moved to ESPN2 the following year, ahead of signing a three-year deal with ESPN in July 2017. The ACL Pro Invitational on July 4 this year was watched by 500,000 people on ESPN.
ACL sponsors like Dollar Shave Club and Johnsonville are getting significant exposure. Sausage company Johnsonville serves as the primary sponsor of the league. The brand had more Google searches this July than in the previous five years combined. The difference: exposure during the July 4th ACL event that followed the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest on ESPN.
Moore is expanding the ACL outside the U.S. The first Canadian broadcast is targeted for June. Moore also wants to take the ACL to Australia, Sweden, Germany and Japan via the World Cornhole League. The idea is to share the expertise and infrastructure of the ACL to create “like-minded leagues.”
Moore sees the youth market as another opportunity. “There is no competitive cornhole in high school or middle school. We want to change that,” he says.
