How to: Start a cornhole league

Starting a Cornhole League!

Congratulations….if you are reading this it means you are past the point of no return in your love for Cornhole and you are prepared to become a league runner!  This is a job with perks, drawbacks and everything in between.   To sum it up….the money ain’t great but the beer is cold when members of your flock buy one for you.

Chances are you either have not found a league close to you or you simply see a gap in the market where you can fill the void.  Either way the result is the same….you’re about to bring the people what they might not even know they need!  Leagues are where people make life -long friendships and mortal “on the board” enemies.   Mix in cold beer and pizza and I think we have found Babylon.

As someone who has run everything from a simple blind draw to multi week leagues I have dealt with most of the issues that do come up….and the complaints as well.  So here is a crash course in what you need to get off the ground and how to handle your tribe.

Finding Your Venue!

Let’s start with the venue because if you don’t have a place to play then you don’t have squat! 

Here is a list of venues we have found to be interested in hosting  a league along with some benefits or drawbacks.  One quick note is that you’ll likely end up with a night earlier in the week.  A lot of these places may get most of their business on the weekend so the week might be your best bet-

·         VFW/Elks/Knights of Columbus/Moose-  This is my first choice and the Doghouse plays at a local VFW.  These clubs have seen decline in membership in recent years for a number of reasons but they seem to be open to providing the room in return for a group of thirsty patrons.  Look up your local clubs and reach right out because likely they may let you run tournaments on a larger scale during the weekends when they have openings.

·         Breweries-  This is a great one because they generally are slower during the early part of the week and having a crew of people in their buying beer is a big plus.  The drawback is that cornhole players drinking 6% New England IPA’s can end in a bloodbath but….take the good with the bad!

·         Function Halls-  Much like the VFW’s and Breweries most of their functions will be on the weekend so you might score with one of these on a Monday or Tuesday when they would prefer to get some revenue from the bar.

·         Outdoor venues -  Outdoor venues can be awesome but depending on liquor laws you might be on the diet cokes outdoors.   We have an excellent one up in Mass that is right next to a bar….so dipping in between games for a libation is easy enough.  Also you need to consider the potential for cancellations due to inclement weather.

·         House Venue-  The ultimate.  If you have someone who wants to host that is awesome and they immediately get their wings to head into the pearly gates of Cornhole heaven.  The beer will be cheap, the music your own and closing time might never happen!

Bags/Boards/Gear

The amount of equipment you need will depend on the size of your league.  We have room for 4 sets of boards at our hall and that seems to be fine for the 25 or so people we get on a given night.

So let’s start with boards   You want your boards to come from a reputable supplier like West Georgia Cornhole!  You want to make sure your builder has ¾ inch Baltic birch tops, solid frames and has a strong reputation.  Buy it right one time rather than cheaping out and getting trampoline boards!  You’ll lose your people fast with bad equipment.

You can order your boards here at www.westgeorgiacornhole.com and use the code “Harddragpush” for 5% off your order!

A question we often get is how to pay for the boards!  It is all dependent on your situation but if you need to raise cash there are some options.  One is to simply ask the members of the club to split the cost.  Another which I love is to get local businesses to sponsor a set or half set of boards.  For around $125-250 they can have their logo in front of local consumers for months or years to come!  This can be an easy sell to places like bars, restaurants and retail establishents.

You now need tablets.  Specifically Kindle Fire work great and later on we will tell you what they are for but you need one per court.  They usually run around $45 on Amazon.

Here is a link to the tablets

As for bags…you want to have some sets on hand but nowadays many people have their own bags and bring them along.  This is a nice savings!  Years ago you’d need a tote with 12 sets of stick slick bags! 

Format for Your First league and welcome to Scoreholio!

There are hundreds of different league formats to choose from with everything from set teams with a relegation system where teams move up and down divisions to blind draw leagues awarding points each night based on finish.  For the purposes of helping you off to a solid start we will focus on an 8 week league utilizing Switcholio from Scoreholio

Once upon a time in the world of Cornhole you would pull chips for partners and the world was a dark place filled with crying cornholers who believed they got screwed in the draw.  Worse yet, you….the organizer would be having scores yelled at you all night and crunching numbers like Bob Cratchet on Christmas Eve!

Scoreholio is a revolutionary software developed for Cornhole which keeps your club rankings, game logs and also even keeps your SPR+ which is kind of like a batting average in baseball.  In short….this software completely rules!

Here is a brief FAQ on Scoreholio

Scoreholio’s Switcholio format mixes partners up throughout the night each week and then allows you to enter a playoff format with top point scorers if you want to that evening.  The best part is Scoreholio allows the organizer to check people in to the tournament in advance, take payments online and even enter late comers after the event has started.  We recommend signing up for the advanced package which makes your life very easy! 

We also find this is an excellent tool for creating camaraderie in your club because people play with new people every night and can make some great friendships meeting and partnering with new people!

Also- remember those tablets you ordered?  Those will be used for everyone to input there scores….so yes….you can enjoy yourself as the system runs itself!!

Rather than bore you with how to set Scoreholio up and connect your club here are some pertinent links to get you started!

How to set up your account- https://docs.scoreholio.com/player-profile/account-setup



How to run a Scoreholio league-

Remember-  you can tweak this to your liking.  So in our league we allowed drop ins who could not commit to the full 6 weeks of league and then we used 25% of each nights tally to pay out a playoff for that evening.  It is a nice hybrid and keeps new people coming into the club with a chance to win something each night.

Here is an excellent video on exactly how you can run your league with Scoreholio-

The best part is you can tweak things once you are familiar with the system and take a vote within the club on how payouts will work as well.

We also recommend letting your club members know if you will be taking money out of the prize pools for things like tablet upgrades  or even a small rake for you to cover the Scoreholio membership.  It’s key to communicate with your crew on how things will work and transparency!

Wrapping up

In our club we like to run regular blind draws for most of the year and then incorporate one or two leagues in times when the drop in crowd is a little slower.  This is a great way to get people engaged and who doesn’t love a little competition amongst the club members!

If you have any additional questions feel free to email me at brendan@harddragpush.com