In each episode of The Playbook presented by FanFood, host Rob Cressy discusses how leaders are modernizing today’s customer experience through technology in sports, entertainment and hospitality. We invite industry veterans to talk about how customer expectation have changed in today’s world, and how businesses need to change accordingly for greater operational efficiency and better guest experience.
Stacey Moore, Founder and Commissioner of the American Cornhole League joins Rob Cressy to talk about how the American Cornhole League has been able to grow during the pandemic. How has technology allowed them to engage their community and increase gameplay opportunities? What impact did having 4 hours of live cornhole gameplay a week on ESPN have? What is their fan engagement mindset and how are they leveraging social media? How are they working on player loyalty and what role does relatability play? What is their growth mindset looking forward to?
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Rob Cressy: (00:07)
Welcome to The Playbook presented by FanFood. A discussion around how leaders are modernizing today’s customer experience through technology in sports, entertainment, and hospitality. I’m your host, Rob Cressy. And joining me today is Stacey Moore, founder and commissioner of the American Cornhole League. Stacy, great to have you on the show.
Stacey Moore: (00:29)
Thanks for having me, Rob. I appreciate being here.
Rob Cressy: (00:32)
Can you give a quick overview of who you are and what you do?
Stacey Moore: (00:36)
Sure. Stacey Moore, founder, and commissioner of the American Cornhole League. We just wrapped up our fifth World Championship, four and a half-full seasons. We start our next season on September 1st, tomorrow. The 2021 season kicks off for our points standings and our six World Championships. A lot of exciting things are going on in the world of cornhole. And I’m looking forward to sharing all those details with everybody.
Rob Cressy: (01:00)
Yeah, and right now the time could not be better for you in American cornhole because strangely during this pandemic you guys have seen insane growth. I saw that you guys had four hours of live television on ESPN. You had 29 million minutes of cornhole watched on your digital channels last month. So, take us into your mindset a little bit more in terms of the growth during the pandemic and sort of how this unfolded, and was this something that you one expected and planned for, or are you nimble and moving as things were happening?
Stacey Moore: (01:42)
Yeah, definitely unexpected. I don’t think anyone expected COVID and what the fallout would be related to that. So, it has certainly been a roller coaster year. I was having another conversation with someone that last I talked to me back in February. He said wow, It felt like two years. It felt like we talked two years ago. So, it has certainly been a wild ride. I’ve been too busy. I can’t get a cool background as you have. I need to find some time to decorate my walls so I can get up to your speed. But yeah, so back in March we were in Cleveland, Ohio. We were in 150,000 square feet. We had 180 sets of cornhole boards set up, ready to go. Thursday night the city, county, the state pulled the plug on us. You know, we’d had over a thousand players travel to that event. They were already in Cleveland.
So, you can imagine the player unrest we had to deal with. Just how disappointed everyone was to not be able to play that event. Extremely costly for us as a small business. When you’re staring a six-figure plus loss in the face in a pandemic you have no idea what to do. But we were fortunate to quickly pivot. We decided that we were going to be the first live professional US sport back on television. And so we went to the drawing board to figure out social distancing rules so that we could get live cornhole back on ESPN. We also invested a lot of money on the technology side really quickly to create ACL virtual to allow people to play cornhole competitions in their backyard. So, we went down two parallel paths immediately there in March that ended up proving out to be very positive for us.
Rob Cressy: (03:39)
All right. So let’s talk about each one. Let’s start with the investment of the tech to allow people to play versus each other. I love this from a community mindset side of things because so many of us have cornhole boards at our homes. We’ve been playing them from college to post-college. It’s just so often it’s part of the culture of summer and being outdoors. And what we love is that connectivity, whether you’re playing versus your friends who might not live in the same city or state as you, all the way to creating new relationships. So, take us a little bit more into sort of what does the technology look like in why you did it?
Stacey Moore: (04:18)
So, we had already had a foundation where we had a training tool that we called a deck around and that’s where players throw 10 rounds, four bags per round and it’s a total score. We base a player skill level sometimes based on their deck around the score. And so our perfect score would be 120 if you throw all four bags in the hall. So, we had that formatted already. So, what we needed to do was figure out how to create a competition around it. And create brackets and have people submit their videos via Facebook for verification, because obviously if you’re scoring your deck around at home off camera it’s very easy to cheat on that. So, we had this Facebook live requirement that got integrated. We were able to integrate our bracket system and our points system fairly quickly with our deck around the format.
We also added another virtual format that one of our ACL pros had developed, which was called a ghost, ghost cornhole which is really cool. It allows a player to play virtually the 21. So, what happens is you set a ghost per round score level. So, for example, if you’re playing against a ghost six and you score eight points in that round, you’re going to net two points. So, we had to develop that functionality within our software. And that became a part of our ACL virtual platform so that we could offer players two different types of ways to play competitively, play competitively for money. We took entry fees, paid out cash for both of those formats. And we’re able to create a bracket competition so that anyone could play no matter where they were located.
Rob Cressy: (06:13)
And what was the response like from the cornhole community?
Stacey Moore: (06:17)
Oh, they’ve loved it. They’ve absolutely loved it. We’re just in the early stages with the ghost cornhole platform piece. There’s all sorts of cool things we can do with that as a training tool. But we’ve powered, I believe it’s over 500 events on that ACL virtual platform during COVID which has been really cool.
Rob Cressy: (06:39)
I have to imagine this is not something that got put together overnight or in one month and the tech side of things, how long ago were you working on this, whether mentally or the actual development of it?
Stacey Moore: (06:52)
As I said, we had a little bit of a core foundation with the deck around and the way that our programmers have developed our software, they’re able to be pretty nimble to be able to put different components together relatively quickly. So, it was a matter of marrying our bracket components and our scoring system with that deck around format, and then programming that ghost scoring system on top of that. But those guys worked probably 24 hours a day for, for a good solid six weeks to get everything smoothed out and going for us.
Rob Cressy: (07:28)
So, let’s talk about the ESPN side of things because one of the biggest challenges for so many of us was a lack of live sports during the pandemic. It’s so baked into the fabric of who we are in our culture and there was just nothing on. Until all of a sudden you turn on ESPN and you know what you would hear, Whoa, there’s cornhole on TV right now. And with nothing else on you became the number one game in town to the point where you were having four hours of live television on ESPN. So, take us into one, how did this happen? Then two, the growth potential to get to four hours where you became the opportunity, you became the league?
Stacey Moore: (08:14)
Yeah, it was really cool the way it all came together and we were certainly fortunate and appreciative of ESPN and our production team and everyone that worked together to make that happen. But like I said, I was convinced that that cornhole is probably one of the best social distancing sports out there. Naturally our players are separated to a degree. There’s no physical contact between them other than some high fives here. So, it made sense to try to create rules to have players step out of the box, have some bag robbers come up with a format that we pitched to ESPN. They ran it all the way up the Disney flag pole. Put it up under all kinds of scrutiny before we did our first event. We had to get approval from the governor of South Carolina to do the very first one. We were able to do that, and that set us on a path to do seven straight weeks where we had four hours every week on ESPN. Certainly, we didn’t expect having that kind of exposure coming into the season where we were contracted for seven total two-hour linear telecasts. We ended up doing seven, four-hour linear telecasts on ESPN, seven weeks in a row. So, it was a crazy ride. And it was a lot of fun, a lot of hard work, a lot of stress, but looking back on it, so glad we were able to accomplish it.
Rob Cressy: (10:00)
What is this going to do for the growth of the sport? Because I have to imagine this really adds one, a lot of credibility. Two, a lot of visibility and three, a lot of opportunities for new players and or sponsors for you guys.
Stacey Moore: (10:15)
Yeah, we had gotten to the point with our sport over the past couple of years where we had kind of gotten past of, okay, this is no longer just a joke that people are making fun of on Twitter. It’s like people are actually watching it. We’re developing a fan base. Our top pros are starting to develop a fan base. And so we were just on the cusp of that going into this season with what we did in January with a special event we did call SuperHole with Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones under our normal format. We were certainly worried that our season was going to be completely wrecked, that we were going to have to abandon our prize pool, have to abandon our broadcast, give our sponsor money back. And so to be able to flip the script on that scenario we were facing and to be able to do these seven weeks, it gave our players a lot more exposure.
So, we have so many of our pros that had never been on an ESPN broadcast court before, now have that experience of being able to play on there and people are being able to see them and get to know them. So, it’s a lot of depth to our ACL pro division. Like I said, a lot of new names got on the broadcast. A lot of those guys are getting recognition and recognized which is awesome. It is also going to help their ability to sell sponsors. Certainly the additional programming we have provided a ton of upside to our sponsors and we couldn’t have done it if Johnsonville didn’t step up and invest additional money on top of what they had already committed to us for the season to make that happen. So, they were certainly the leader for us to make sure that we could do all those broadcasts. It became a win-win for both of us for sure.
Rob Cressy: (12:05)
Let’s dig into your fan engagement mindset a little bit because I think you have a unique perspective because you’re running a professional cornhole league, but at the same time, we know the larger, massive people who play this. So, you’ve got this sport, but then you’ve got the big community here and you’ve already talked about how you’re using technology to embrace the community to help them out there. But what’s really your fan engagement mindset as a whole to bring all of that together. Because oftentimes as a fan, it can be hard to relate to the professional league of things. You see that and you’re like, I would love to do that one day, but your ability to continually be there and show up every day so that I, the cornhole casual fan can feel some sort of way about what you guys do.
Stacey Moore: (12:55)
Yeah. I think one of the best things about our sport is that we cross over with all other professional sports in some ways, it’s relatable, right? So, whether you’re playing cornhole at a tailgate, or whether you see the NBA players playing cornhole in the bubble, whether you see the major league baseball guys out there throwing cornhole and doing trick shots as a part of interacting with us, that fan engagement and fan activation piece are massive for us. So, as I said, the crossover, not only with everyday person that’s out there throwing bags in their backyard but the celebrities that also enjoy throwing it, we’re able to bring that together. We can provide a lot of positive fan interaction benefits for the NFL, for the NBA, for Major League Baseball. All the other professional sports benefit from working with us. And then we certainly love to leverage social media. So, whether it’d be doing trick shots, whether it be doing these virtual events, creating all kinds of cool competitions, figuring out how to increase our exposure on Tik Tok, Snapchat, and all these great social media platforms. We’re in the middle of all of it and embracing all of it.
Rob Cressy: (14:13)
Here’s what I’m interested in. So, you mentioned Tik Tok and these other platforms that you’re embracing. And so often I think one of the challenges for teams, leagues, brands, or companies is they make excuses for why they can’t do something. Whereas I see the growth trajectory of what you’re working on and it seems like a no brainer to say, we want to continue to build on our footprint in as many different ways as we can. Let’s embrace this technology and this social first and fan first mindset. So, what would you say to others who may be skeptical about using or growing into new platforms that they may not necessarily have experience in?
Stacey Moore: (14:55)
Well, you have to do it. You have to figure it out. As my daughter will tell me, I’m an old guy that doesn’t get it, right? So, I’ll ask my daughter, my 18-year-old daughter questions about what she’s doing on Snapchat and other things to really start to try to understand and figure out because I personally don’t use Snapchat. So, I just have to embrace it. I have to educate myself. I have to talk to people that are in the middle of it and experts. So, one of the partnerships that we recently did was with Wave TV. They put us on two episodes of Oddballs. And I believe that generated 24 million impressions for our brand through Wave TV and the Oddballs content through that partnership. So, pretty amazing. Pretty amazing what’s going on in that realm. So, if you’re a sports league out there and you’re not in it, you better get in it.
Rob Cressy: (16:00)
What I really liked about what you said is that you’re self-aware enough to know that even though I don’t do it, it doesn’t mean that we don’t do it. Hey, if I don’t understand it, let me find someone who does understand it so that we can leverage it. Because so often I think that becomes the missed opportunity. We don’t have to understand everything as a leader of an organization, but you want to find a team of experts and people who can say, Hey, what can we do to be forward thinking and to put ourselves in the best position to succeed. And Oh, by the way, you know who this is really for? Your fans, your audience. They deserve this. They deserve you being the best version of yourself when it comes to social even if you yourself are not on every platform.
Stacey Moore: (16:49)
Yeah, certainly. We are in the early stages of growing our sport as a professional sport with that fan base and building our fan base and building that player loyalty for our ACL pros so that they could build their own brands of value. While they might not ever reach the LeBron James status of having that large of a fan base, we certainly wanted to give them every opportunity for them to build a large following and their own brands as well.
Rob Cressy: (17:24)
Well, yeah. And when it comes to player loyalty, the good thing is someone’s going to meet some of your players and it’s actually going to mean more because it’s more relatable. You see LeBron James and it’s like seeing bigfoot or something. It’s like, I can’t believe I just saw LeBron James. Like I actually saw him. I saw LeBron James once. I was eating dinner in Chicago at this restaurant called RPM Italian. And all of a sudden the Cavs were in town playing the Bulls and in walks LeBron James and Tristan Thompson and you literally stop mid eating and you say, Holy crap, that is a LeBron James who just walked through here. It’s a surreal moment, but it’s not as relatable where someone’s going to meet one of your professional players and be like, wait a second. I drink beer like that guy might do. I play cornhole just like he might. Wait a second. We might be friends one day. There’s something beautiful about that because I actually believe that’s what helps build a fan base, is the relate-ability.
Stacey Moore: (18:29)
Yeah. And I think a lot of that, you know we’ve been compared to the early stages of NASCAR sometimes to have that kind of relate-ability of how NASCAR drivers had that level of interaction with their fans. It’s certainly great for us when someone like Johnsonville takes the big taste grill out on the road. Invites some of our ACL pros to become and be a part of a festival or a retail activation, or activation at an SEC tailgate party, right? Our pros are sitting there throwing bags with everyone else. They have a chance to compete against them. They have a chance to learn from them. They have a chance to get to know them. So, I love seeing that interaction. And then also love seeing the interaction that our ACL pros have with other celebrities that cause cornhole is a sport that will humanize another celebrity’s ego faster than anything.
Like when Terrell Owens was running his mouth about how he was going to beat Cody Henderson, and Cody Henderson beat him 21-0, I think seven times in a row. Those are really enjoyable sights to see and the fans enjoyed watching it too. That saw that kind of thing go down in an impromptu moment. So, that’s definitely one of them, one of the cool things about our sport and our pros. Right now, they’re eager to interact with people they’re eager to build their fan base. We are starting to see a lot of them signing autographs. We just did a deal with Tops. We’ve rolled out Topps cards around our world championships for the first time ever. So, we’re just continuing to grow in that way.
Rob Cressy: (20:10)
So, let’s look forward now. So, right now you’re definitely in an awesome period of growth and we want to make sure that we keep that going. So, take us into your growth mindset a little bit right now, because we know we can’t rest on our laurels because you never know what’s going to happen where all of a sudden an event gets canceled or who knows what. So, what are you doing to continue this growth moving forward?
Stacey Moore: (20:35)
Yeah, so certainly going into next year, we want to do more guaranteed linear airings with linear networks. And so that’s certainly one of our goals. We’re actually to be rolling out another series. So, we’ll have the ACL Pro Shootout series in addition to the ACL Pro World Championships going on here next season. I believe that’ll be close to 20 original events that we’re going to be doing next year on linear television. So, that’s really exciting to see that growth will become a lot more sponsor activations and integrations as we develop on the pro side. On the college side, we have some big plans as well. We’re working on a major partnership on the college integration front to build out our national college cornhole championship platform which happens over new years here this year in Myrtle Beach. So, we’re excited about that.
And we’re looking to build cornhole out at the high school level. So, high school competitions, we’re doing the first-ever national high school cornhole championship around our college event over new year’s here this year. And we’ll probably pop up some special events between now and the end of the year because there is some time to fill. So, we’re not going to wait until January when we typically roll out our pro competitions. We’re going to start doing some things here early. In fact, we’re doing ACL Pros versus Joes and out in Galveston, Texas in two weeks. So, that’ll be a special digital broadcast that’s coming up.
Rob Cressy: (22:19)
Awesome. I love it. Is there a way to create a handicap type system where the pros could play versus Joe’s? Cause like you said, one of the pros played versus Terrell Owens and just absolutely smoked him. And it’s no different than in golf. If I’m going to play against a professional golfer he’s going to destroy me. But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a way to say, all right, I’m getting 20 strokes taken on this person. Is that something that is part of your world?
Stacey Moore: (22:43)
Yeah, so we certainly see side games will go on where people will spot points here and there. And depending on the level of competition or the difference in skill level, sometimes that point spotting or setting a spread on a game can work out to make it competitive, but in most cases like any ACL Pro that spots me 20 points, they’re going to beat me 21-20. I just don’t stand a chance against them. So, handicapping me in that way is not gonna do any good. But what we do use is we use our virtual events like the deck around I mentioned. To be able to put people and similar skill levels. So, we have five different skill levels within the ACL. So, if you’re a beginner, you can compete against other beginners. If you’re an intermediate player, competitive player, or advanced player, we have tiered competitions based on the skill level that we do both in-person and virtually. So, for the ACL Pros and Joes, actually, a Joe is going to play in an entry tournament with an opportunity to be matched up with an ACL Pro. And that Pro is going to be playing on behalf of that Joe. The pros aren’t gonna take any prize money in this event. All of the prize money is going through the Joes. So, it’s a really cool opportunity for non-pros to play. To have a chance to be on an ACL digital broadcast and win some money.
Rob Cressy: (24:07)
Yeah. And I like it because now I can sort of seeing you could put a Pro and a Joe on a team together and just have the pros play versus the pros and the Joe’s versus the Joe’s. And that would sort of even it out.
Stacey Moore: (24:20)
Yeah. That’s definitely what we do. And that’s what we did at the SuperHole with Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones. Sam and Daniel threw against each other while our two pros threw against each other. So, they were able to have the battle of New York with our ACL Pros which was a lot of fun and pretty cool. But we certainly love doing those kinds of special events and those formats whether it be for charity, whether it be for fan entertainment, whether it be activation around a large sporting event like SuperHole around the SuperBowl. All really cool stuff. All great ways to leverage our sport.
Rob Cressy: (24:56)
Stacy, I love so many things about what you guys are doing, the growth that you’re seeing, the way you think about engaging fans, and the way that you’re using technology because you are doing things correctly. And for me, that is extremely refreshing to see and I’m very proud of you and the growth that you guys are having. Where can everybody connect with you?
Stacey Moore: (25:17)
Visit us at Iplayacl.com. We’re out there on all the social media channels as well.
Rob Cressy: (25:24)
And as always, I would love to hear from you about this episode. Do you play cornhole? If so, on a scale of 0 to 100, how good are you? You can hit up FanFood on Twitter @FanFoodondemand. On Instagram, @FanFoodapp or on LinkedIn. And as always, you can hit me up on all social media platforms @RobCressy.