SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – Lawn games are a staple for Utahns looking to spend time with family or friends outdoors. The American Cornhole League, founded in 2015, is coming to Utah to show that it can be much more than that.
The world’s best cornhole players are coming to Utah to compete on May 6 and 7 this weekend. The event will be broadcast on ESPN as part of a three-year deal with the American Cornhole League. The event will take place at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy, Utah.
Stacey Moore, founder of the American Cornhole League, believes cornhole has become so popular because it is so “accessible and easy to relate to.” Despite this accessibility, Moore says there is a high level of strategy and complexity that is not immediately recognizable to casual players, setting it apart from other lawn games as a great fit for professional play. He reports that “new shots and strategies” are constantly evolving in professional cornhole play.
In addition to the normally scheduled competition, there will be a cleverly named “SuperHole” event in which four Utah celebrities will compete for a place in the World Championship in August as well as a $100,000 donation to a charity of their choice. The celebrities scheduled to participate include Lisa Barlow of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” Kyle Van Noy, Vernon Davis, and Joe Baena.
The event here in SLC is one of the top five events for the American Cornhole League in the year. Spectators or amateur players can expect to see the game being played “from 8:30 in the morning to 10:30 at night both Friday and Saturday,” says Moore.
The history of cornhole goes back further than one might think. In 1883, Heyliger de Windt applied for a U.S. patent for a game he called “Parlor Quoits,” to which most attribute the invention of the game as it is known today. Notably, Windt’s patented game featured a square hole in a board instead of the round hole associated with cornhole today.
Windt then sold the rights to his new game to a toy manufacturer in the U.S. and renamed the game “Faba Baga,” which had two different sized holes in a board worth differing amounts of points. Since then, the game has gone through several different popular iterations to exist in the form as we know it today.
Cornhole likely was named as such after players used beanbags filled with raw corn kernels. Lawn games in general have an even longer history, dating back to Middle Ages England and even more ancient games played in Ancient Egypt and Rome.
The American Cornhole League’s website is a great resource for those interested in competing or spectating professional cornhole. It includes general information about equipment, rules, and membership in the league.
