By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
They had a three-day event at Mandalay Bay Feb. 11-13, the sports action was available for betting on Draft Kings in eight states and you could have watched the sport from Las Vegas on ESPN.
It was the American Cornhole League. Yes, the best in the sport of cornhole wanted a piece of Las Vegas, too.
LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Stacey Moore, commissioner and founder of the American Cornhole League, to find out why the cornhole jocks came to Las Vegas for the competition. Here is our LVSportsBiz.com Five Question Feature:
LVSportsBiz.com: How did the American Cornhole League come up with picking Las Vegas for this “SuperHole” event and discuss how Mandalay Bay was picked as the site
Stacey Moore: About 3 years ago, we created SuperHole. Initially the concept was us teaming up an ACL Pro with a celebrity to play cornhole LIVE on ESPN the Friday before the Big Game. Due to its enormous popularity, the idea evolved into a multi-event cornhole SuperHole series that will consist of 6 different prelims. The series will culminate with the SuperHole III Championship that will be hosted alongside the ACL World Championships this August from the ACL Headquarters in Rock Hill, South Carolina. We have held several different cornhole events in Vegas over the last few years and our players really enjoyed the experience. When we were looking for an alternative to being in the Los Angeles area Vegas made a lot of sense with all the excitement around Big Game weekend. We were fortunate that Mandalay Bay had the space available and the desire to work with us to host our event. We want to establish grounds in cities with a growing cornhole fanbase and Vegas is just that!
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LVSB: How interested was your broadcaster in doing the telecast from Mandalay Bay and Las Vegas?
SM: Our team loved it. Both Trey Ryder, who has been called the Tony Romo of Cornhole and Jeff McCarragher embraced the city and quite honestly had a great time. We unveiled a new broadcast court which looked outstanding on TV and the entire weekend went super smoothly. We were really proud to kick off our 2022 season in Vegas!
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LVSB: How did you arrange for the “celebrities” to be picked to participate in the event at Mandalay Bay?
SM: Authenticity is what defines the ACL. We want personalities who love to have fun and want to learn how to improve their cornhole game. What we do is we pair up a celebrity with one of our ACL pros. Every celebrity we invite to play on our broadcast has expressed their love for the game in some capacity. For example, David Lim who stars in S.W.A.T on CBS is a massive cornhole fan. David, Shemar Moore and the rest of the S.W.A.T cast even have a dedicated Instagram handle (@swatcornhole). David lives in LA so it was an easy commute for him. You couldn’t ask for a better personality than Phil Hellmuth who partnered up with the 2018 player of the year Cody Henderson. Then we had star of Pawn Stars Chumlee playing with ACL Pro Eric Anderson and former NFL running back turned cornhole extraordinaire, Terry Kirby. It was a great mix of personalities and made for some entertaining and competitive competition!
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LVSB: What was your impression of the Las Vegas sports market and how many people came to Las Vegas for this event at Mandalay Bay?
SM: We absolutely loved participating in the action in Sin City and were so excited to bring the fastest growing sport to town. Additionally an added bonus was we had live odds out there on DraftKings and what better place to talk sports betting than Las Vegas! We’re legal in eight states, so anyone that wants to bet on SuperHole, can do that now on DraftKings. We liked being here so much that we will be back in Vegas later this summer (June 10-12) for our Pro Shootout Series which airs on CBS. This time we will be at the South Point Hotel & Casino.
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LVSB: What do you think will be the next best revenue maker for the American Cornhole League?
SM: Well certainly our sponsors like Johnsonville, Bush’s Beans, Bacardi, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Discount Tire and AllCornhole.com. We have agreements with ESPN and CBS. In September of last year, we brought on our first outside investors in former Georgetown University basketball coach John Thompson III and real estate mogul Jim Simmons who both have added tremendous value to our league. The ACL also makes revenue from cornhole merchandise, products and apparel. Our goal is to make the ACL an Olympic Sport which we truly believe can be done sooner rather than later.
PSA