The incredible, amazing, inclusive sport of cornhole

One of the fastest growing sports in the country, complete with corporate sponsors, excited fans and top competitors earning six figures a year is … cornhole?

Yes, you heard it right. Cornhole, a deceptively simple game of tossing bean bags into targets, has moved from the backyard and stadium parking lot into the heady realm of professional sports — yes, it is a sport.

A small handful of pros are starting to make a living playing American Cornhole League-sanctioned events. The regular cornhole season starts in October and runs through August. The league puts on five championship tournaments, the first held at the Super Bowl in February — not on the gridiron proper, of course, but at a venue nearby — leading up to the world championship in Rock Hill, South Carolina in August. In all, about $1 million is at stake.

If you question the popularity of the sport, talk to Josh Thielen, a Minnesota transplant and Livermore player. This year, he finished in the top 24 in the open standings to become one of just 254 professional cornhole players. He and his cornhole partner, Corey Gilbert from Sacramento, now compete regularly.

Thielen’s not quitting his day job as the vice president of marketing for a Silicon Valley medical tech company, but he’s definitely cornhole focused.

Thielen’s cornhole dream began innocently enough with a neighborhood game, shortly after he, his wife and two children moved to Livermore five years ago. Their street had a cornhole tradition. While the kids played and ran around, the adult tossed bags.

“It’s a good sport for dads,” Thielen says. “You’re less likely to injure yourself, and you can have a few beers.”

Thielen enjoyed the camaraderie, friendly banter and competition. He also discovered he was pretty good at it. He never dreamed he could be a cornstar, but he and a neighbor entered a cornament hosted at a nearby bar and won third place.

Thielen eventually joined a league, Pleasanton’s Pacific Coast Cornhole, competing against other Bay Area clubs including San Jose’s Willow Glen Cornhole, the Brentwood Bombers, Vallejo’s North Bay Elite Kornhole and Pleasant Hill’s West Coast Cornhole.

The turning point for Thielen might have come during a cornament, where he and his partner lost rather quickly, getting shucked early on. (Did we mention that cornhole has its own slang?) So he entered a blind draw, where players are matched up with someone they don’t know. Thielen lucked out and drew an experienced corn chucker, and they won the draw, each taking home an $800 Traeger grill.

“I thought, wow, you can have a few adult beverages and win things,” Thielen says

When COVID hit, Thielen began spending a lot of time working from home — a home that fortuitously had a very long hall in it. Thielen purchased some boards and bags, and during breaks, he practiced. He got good. And then he got better.

Meanwhile, the already popular game continued to get even more popular. While COVID forced other sports into hiatus or shortened seasons, cornhole became the first sport to return to action. It’s not difficult to social distance, when cornhole boards are placed the required 27 feet apart. It didn’t hurt the game’s hotness factor that ESPN, which had aired the pro games since 2017, began highlighting them even more, evoking appreciative tweets.

“Watching cornhole on ESPN and the guys are sponsored by Bush’s Baked Beans playing on boards sponsored by Johnsonville sausages. This is the America I know and love,” @danemagic tweeted as a pair of cornholers competed in baked bean regalia.

Watching cornhole on ESPN and the guys are sponsored by bush’s baked beans playing on boards sponsored by johnsonville sausages. This is the America I know and love. pic.twitter.com/h4P4VOPbWO

— Dane? (@danemagic) April 10, 2021

PSA: Do not block Matt Guy. ????

Back-to-back airmails on a deep block! pic.twitter.com/vnyhEId0UZ

— American Cornhole League (@iplaycornhole) October 14, 2021

Brentwood Bombers co-presidents Ray Chavarria and Connor Dorais say it’s easier to explain the popularity of the game once you’ve played it. There’s competition, yes, but it’s amazingly friendly, and everybody has a good time. You meet people from all walks of life, and if a new player with a hot hand happens to show up and beats the top player, it’s all good.

“People will be cheering them on,” Chavarria says. “There’s something kind of beautiful about that.”

The pair started playing cornhole during the pandemic, when entertainment was hard to find. They showed up at an event outside a struggling bowling alley, and it took off from there. The Bombers’ Facebook page now has more than 500 members, and the club plays every Wednesday and Sunday.

There’s a lot more to cornhole than just chucking a bean bag at a slanted board and into a hole. Thielen says it’s more chess than checkers.

There are four basic shots. Land on the board with enough oomph so the bag slides in. Make a block shot by perfectly placing a bag in front of a hole, making a score more difficult for your opponent. Throw a push shot that hits the blocking bag with enough power to move it out of the way, sometimes into the hole, and get your bag in the hole as well. And the fourth is the most dramatic, like launching a 3-pointer in basketball. It’s the “airmail” — you pitch the bag straight into the target, catching nothing but hole.

While the airmail is the most exciting, Thielen says the block is the most difficult.

Specialized equipment helps game play, whether it’s a fast bag, which slides with more speed, or a slow bag, whose stickiness yields a slow slide handy for blocking a hole.

Scoring is simple enough. Land a bag on the board but not in the hole, score 1 point; get it in the hole, 3 points. First to 21 wins.