How to Start a Cornhole League or Club
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Whether you think you've got what it takes to beat the bags pros on ESPN or are just looking to throw bags at a slightly more serious level than your backyard, your journey starts with a local cornhole league or weekly cornhole blind draw tournament. You can find specific tournaments by downloading and checking the #1 tournament running app Scoreholio or searching the biggest (ok, only...) directory/map of cornhole clubs in the world: Cornhole Finder.
What equipment do I need to start a cornhole club?
- Boards: To gets started you really just need a couple sets of boards. If you've got a core group of baggers looking to start playing more seiously, you can get things going by having peoiple bring their own boards, but you'll pretty quickly want to get a set of consistent boards, ideally one you can store at the venue. If you're a capable DIY guy or gal you can build their own, but a good set of custom tournament-grade boards with your club's logo on them, or sponsor's logos, should only cost $250-300. Whichever way you decide to go, you can find recommendations for how to build or buy cornhole boards.
- Bags: You don't need to provide bags. Most experienced players prefer to play with their own bags and carry sets they use for different conditions and opponents anyway. Most new players are not only willing to play with whatever bags their partner (probably) has, but appreciate and benefit from the opportunity to play with different borrowed bags so they can get a feel for what works best for them.
- Score Towers: You'll need some way for people to keep score. If you use an app like Scoreholio, you can forego the old fashioned golf tees or clothespins in favor of tablets at each court, but you don't need that. You can go old school at each court and run the whole thing from your phone.
What kind of venue do I need to start a cornhole club?
As Tony Cevik of Marshall Cornhole Crew wrote in his article "The Quest for the Perfect Cornhole Venue": "Figure out how many courts you want and do the math. And that’s just for court space, nevermind sitting space, walking space, space for the control table, and parking. And don’t forget about what is a deal killer a lot of times – ceiling height! A good venue has to meet a lot of specific criteria. Give respect to those that have sought out and found spots that meet that criteria."
Basically you need a couple hundred square feet flat area where you can set up your boards. In a perfect world each court has up 8 feet by 40 feet of space -- that gives players plenty of space to "step out" for off-center push shots or to sneak around a blocker, and enough room behind them that people can walk to and from their courts without disrupting other games -- but for a local league or blind draw you can get by with less if necessary, as long as you can get the boards 27 feet from front edge to front edge.
The perfect situation is one that involves a trade: you receive the use of their space and they receive a good size crowd of people, people that typically wouldn’t be there, to spend money at their establishment. This is in lieu of you paying a fee to use their spot. A place that serves food and alcohol is 100% ideal. However, don’t let the fact that they don’t serve food and alcohol completely deter you. A trade arrangement can still be made.
To learn more about all that read "The Quest for the Perfect Cornhole Venue."
What app/software do I need to start a cornhole club?
- Scoreholio: Whatever style or size of cornhole tournament you're looking to run, just go download Scoreholio right now. Their site features lots of articles about how to run different kinds of events and leagues with Scoreholio, including several written by yours truly, their fantastic docs/faq offer quick tutorials on everything, and they even provide live chat support if you need help during your event.
How do I get people to come to my cornhole club's events?
- Make friends with the folks who run cornhole clubs near you. Hopefully you already know them from driving just a little to far to play with them. If not, get to know them -- reach out via Facebook, start attending their events to get to know people and spread the word, etc. Remember, even if they are an hour away that means some percentage of their members drive there from closer to you.
- Create a Club Facebook Page: You'll need to establish an online presence for your club so people can learn about events you've got coming up, ask questions of you and other club members, etc. Here are a bunch of tips for that: Establishing an Online Presence for your Cornhole Organization
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Promote Specific Tournaments:
- Create Facebook events for your weekly blind draw and other tournaments with your page, including recurring events, promote them in local/regional cornhole discussion groups.
- If you run your tournaments with Scoreholio, get them into the system early and often so people looking for cornhole in your area find them.
- Add your events to Cornhole Finder, and share them in the 8,000-member Cornhole Finder Facebook group