Cornhole, much like horseshoes, bocce ball or shuffleboard may not be considered much of a sport, but as a sports ethics keynote speaker, sports ethics consultant and book author, I know cornhole is well on its way to being legitimized. How do I know this, because it is already embroiled in a major scandal.
Yes, there are professional Corn-holer’s and they make a lot of money
Professional cornhole players may bring down as much as $250K a year. Whatever you think the “sport” may be, guys who may have never gone past Middle School softball, suddenly found a calling because they learned how to throw a beanbag through a hole.
Last August, at the 2022 American Cornhole League World Championships, one of the athletes (Devon Harbaugh) issued a complaint that his opponents were using non-regulation bean bags, an egregious violation of the rules. I’m not saying that this is like corking a bat, deflating footballs or putting an illegal bend in a hockey stick, but it’s pretty serious.
The beanbags were too thin and too light, making them easier to grab and toss.
However, the beanbag complaint did a boomerang
So, when the suspect beanbags were measured and weighed — and found to be legitimately illegal, the accused team insisted on the officials measuring the other team’s beanbags. Those bags were also found to be non-compliant. For those who have a burning question as to what a regulation ACL (American Cornhole League) beanbag should look like, it must be 6-inches square and weigh about a pound. How or why this size was determined remains a mystery.
After the accusations and counter-accusations, according to reports “officials determined that the violations were not intentional and decided to continue the competition with a $15,000 cash prize at stake.”
Naturally the head of the ACL, the organization representing about 155,000 cornhole aficionados, assured the media that the finalists did not intend for the beanbags to be illegal even though it seems as though “doctoring” beanbags is not that uncommon. Some players boil their beanbags and others soak them in vinegar.
Lighter and thinner bags can be advantageous and players have been boiling their bags or washing them with vinegar to make them more pliable. In any case, the ACL has expanded its compliance to make sure the beanbags meet the standard.
Big shifts in the sport
The backyard game is about to grow-up. There is too much commercial money at stake to allow illegal beanbags. Beer companies, sausage makers and baked bean manufacturers and the like, get nervous around illegal practices. The ACL is proposing automatic beanbag testing and umpires of some kind are about to take the field.
It is, of course, easy to become flippant in regard any game or sport. Fraudsters have always known this and that is why “opportunity” crept into the cornhole game. Indeed, it must have been embarrassing when the national championships revealed that all of the finalists were playing with illegal equipment.
Sports of any kind are prone to ethical malpractice. Whether we would like to believe that the sport of cornhole is akin to hockey or baseball is not relevant; what we do know is that this benign game is exploding in terms of players and endorsements and the television money is growing serious. There is talk that on the national stage, the total prize money might be as high as $5 million in 2023.
People will take advantage out of a need for money and prestige. The fraudsters in this, or any other sport will rationalize their behavior and that will become a major problem.
Sports Ethics does not differentiate the NFL from the ACL; we differentiate the ethical from the unethical and good choices from bad consequences.
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