It might be a simple game, but cornhole is taking North America by storm

A popular children's game is gaining ground in the sports world, with both professional and amateur players taking it from backyards and school gymnasiums into warehouses, convention centres and even onto ESPN.

In Canada, cornhole — a simple game where a player scores points by throwing small square beanbags onto a sloped board just over eight metres away — has been growing in popularity in recent years, with leagues popping up across the country.

"It's just a game that anyone can play," said Cornhole Canada president, Pino Panza, who launched the organization in November 2020.

"That's the main thing. It's very easy. Doesn't matter your gender. Doesn't matter your abilities. Doesn't matter your age."

The game may be simple, but there are stringent rules and regulations and — at the more elite level — nifty names for the various styles of throws.

There's the blocker shot, the slide shot, the airmail shot, the push shot. And in recent years, the cut shot, the roll shot, the flop shot — even the bar-of-soap shot.

Cornhole Canada now has 37 member leagues and roughly 3,200 players, said Panza. He's hopeful they'll close in on 5,000 members in 2024.

With 19 leagues, Ontario is cornhole's hotbed, he said.

American Cornhole Organization (ACO) founder and president Frank Geers. (Submitted by American Cornhole Organization)

Head start south of the border

The sport had a head start in the United States, where the American Cornhole Association (ACA), the first of three competitive leagues, began in 2003.

Two years later, a group of bean bag enthusiasts created the American Cornhole Organization (ACO), and then the American Cornhole League (ACL) opened its doors in 2015.

ESPN currently broadcasts some of ACL's tournaments. The sport has also been covered by the CBS Sports Network.

"You can only guess what percentage of the population actually is aware of cornhole and how many people are actually playing it," said ACO founder and president Frank Geers.

"But I can tell you, it's a multi-billion dollar industry."

Both the ACO and ACL offer prize money to professional players and have dozens of tour stops across the U.S. each year — and in some cases, in Canada as well.

For example, in Owensboro, Ky., this weekend, 600 players from 19 states will compete in a "Super Major" ACO event and vie for $30,000 in prize money.

Origins unclear

According to the ACO website, the game has had many names over the years — including corn toss, bean toss and soft horseshoes — but "to many of us born and raised in Kentucky and the southern part of Ohio, the game is passionately referred to as cornhole."

Historic Hudson Valley, a not-for-profit organization that promotes historic landmarks of national significance in the U.S., wrote about its possible origins in a 2014 article.

"Some say it was invented in 14th-century Germany. Others credit the Blackhawk tribe of Illinois," they wrote. "Still others point to a Kentucky farmer in the 1800s."

Whatever its origin story, many agree amateur cornhole players can comfortably play with a bean bag in one hand and a drink in the other.

In fact, cornhole is as much about the game as it is about the camaraderie, said Matt Armstrong, co-founder of the Ottawa Cornhole League.

"It's meeting new people, meeting new friends," he said. "It's [one big] thing we lost during COVID, and that's the one thing for our league that we want to bring back to everybody in Ottawa."

Matt and Melany Armstrong started the Ottawa Cornhole League with another friend in 2023. They now have close to 90 members. (Rebecca Zandbergen/CBC)

The Ottawa Cornhole League started in 2023 with 40 members. It doubled that by the end of the year, Armstrong said, forcing the league to relocate its Tuesday night meet-ups to a larger venue.

Armstrong said the game's appeal "comes down to four facts": it's social, it's affordable, it has simple rules (three points for a bag in the hole, one point for a bag on the board) and you don't need to be an athlete to play.

"It's not a strength sport," he said. "It's a skill sport."

Still, people who "don't understand the game [will] sometimes crack jokes," said Mark Richards, a 27-year-old from Indiana who's been a professional player in the ACL for three years.

"I'm very passionate about the sport," said Richards, who finished fourth in the ACL last year and says he practices three to four hours a day.

"Every sport started somewhere," added Geers. "It's not like playing soccer or football ... but I can tell you this, just because you can play soccer and football doesn't mean you have the skills, the hand-eye co-ordination, to play cornhole."

The Ottawa Cornhole League recently moved into this bigger warehouse space to accomodate a growing membership. (Ottawa Cornhole League/Facebook)

Olympic dreams

Although there are rivalries between the various leagues, there are some collective goals: to grow the sport and to one day reach the Olympics.

"At the end of the day, if we want to continue to bring in money and get bigger sponsorships, we all have to work together," said Richards, noting the ACL already has a million-dollar prize pool.

"It puts things into perspective that, like, somebody can make a living off of this."

"We want to go to the Olympics," added Panza. "Our goal is to spearhead a world organization with other countries and have a true world championship which could lead to the Olympics."