“Beer in one hand, bag in another.”
That’s the way American Cornhole League founder Stacey Moore describes his growing business. However Moore us underselling what he has built, and we saw firsthand last week on Radio Row at Super Bowl in Miami how the ACL resonates with almost everyone, and how Cornhole really expanded their reach by using Radio Row as a marketing tool.
Now for those who don’t understand the value of Radio Row, read Bryan Curtis’ great piece in The Ringer about how the “science” of exposure works during the week. It will be a great primer as well as a reminder.
Back to Cornhole. Without an official affiliation with the game, ACL used their first professional event of the year (in Fort Lauderdale on Friday night) and the massive opportunity of just showing up at the Miami Beach Convention center as their low cost, effective brand exposure point to start 2020. There was no huge entourage, it was really a simple sell…and many people bought in. Why? It was a nice break from the typical topics of the week on Radio Row. While hundreds came through to talk football, the ACL talked fun and brand activation which broke up the hours of pigskin picking for several dozen media outlets.
They also brought their boards and bags, and gave people the ability to play a little as well, which is again a great way to cut through the clutter and even capture content. Now it was certainly more hit and miss with getting current and former NFL players and other celebs to stop and play for a few (and officials did make them close up shop as the week got more crowded), but fun, and a lasting impression was had by all who crossed paths with them during the days they were there.
By the way Cornhole Commissioner and Founder Moore came well-armed with his best as well, bringing along top ranked Cody Henderson, the 2018 player of the year, to take on all comers including MMA superstar Jorge Masdival who took on Cody in an epic Cornhole battle with Cody easily defeating Masdival. Former NFL star Rashad Jennings also tried his luck at playing Cody, even challenging the loser to do 10 push-ups. Cody destroyed Jennings – who held up his end of the bargain and did 10 push-ups without fail while America Ninja Warriors own Akbar lost in convincing fashion as well. All in good fun and brand building.
The highlight of the weekend away from Miami was a special ESPN2 broadcast event called Superhole where the battle of New York took centerstage. NY Jets QB Sam Darnold took on NY Giants QB Daniel Jones – with each player being paired with an ACL Pro in Fort Lauderdale on Friday night. Darnold and his partner Matthew Sorrells ran the table and came home as champions and the event was shown following the game at 11:30pm.
The highlight of the weekend was a special ESPN2 broadcast event called Superhole where the battle of New York took centerstage. NY Jets QB Sam Darnold took on NY Giants QB Daniel Jones – with each player being paired with an ACL Pro. Darnold and his partner Matthew Sorrells ran the table and came home as champions! The event was shown following the game at 11:30pm and served as a great way to bring all of the talk together for three very busy days.
Now did ACL do as much media as agent Leigh Steinberg, who spent almost every minute of the three days traversing the convention center, or XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck, who also took three days to talk up the league to a host of media members? No. They had obvious relevance to the media and the audience. Every step ACL took was much more of an exposure point to a relatively new audience, one which will pay dividends in exposure down the road.
Many who brought talent to Radio Row scored, but Cornhole did an amazing job of winning the week as rookies.
For more details on the business, listen in to our podcast with Stacey and Cody here.
