It gets harder and harder to pick boards that stand out from the crowd each quarter. The level of talent is so high that it can be something as simple as a nice photograph that makes one set get picked over another. For the last few months of 2011, we’ve picked some boards that we feel push the bounds of creativity. These boards are generally unique in some way, obviously well constructed or with extra features, or just generally bad ass boards.

After sorting through over 340 pictures, we’ve finally managed to select our favorite boards of the fourth quarter of 2011. All of our selections were posted to the Cornhole Game Players Forum (gallery section) from October to December of 2011. Pictures are selected based on creativity of construction, design, & customization. Poor photos of great boards are often omitted, as are pictures of only one board.

If you’d like to be included in future Best Boards events, all you have to do is share your boards in the CGP Forum Gallery. Thanks to everyone who shared their awesome boards! Click here for the full board gallery.

To view the full gallery, click here.

Related posts:

1. Top 14 Cornhole Boards :: Q3 2011
2. Top 12 Cornhole Boards :: Q2 2011
3. Top 12 Cornhole Boards :: Q1 2011

We’ve been working on a series of articles for the Outdoor Games Blog that will feature Outdoor Game business owners. We want to know how these businesses came to be, what makes them unique, their general workflow, and their plans for the future.

Our latest Q&A is with Matt Butler, creator of a game called Rollors. We’ve been working with Matt for years, and wanted to share some details about the evolution of his business here on the Blog. Here’s what Matt had to say!

Business Spotlight : Rollors

What’s your business?

I created the new award winning game called Rollors. Think of Rollors as a game that combines the fun of Bocce Ball, Horseshoes, and Bowling. There are both the elements of skill and chance to Rollors. The homepage for the game is www.rollors.net

How did you learn about the game that is/are the basis for your business?

My family has a lake house cabin in Minnesota and back in those days there wasn’t Internet, satellite TV, portable gaming systems, etc, so we played a lot of other activates like Bocce Ball and Horseshoes. Then, later in life when I joined the Air Force, I was on a deployment in the Middle East and was thinking how nice it would be to be back at the lake house, and started developing ideas for other outdoor games that could be played. I figured everyone seemed to have a set of Bocce Ball or Horseshoes in their garage.

How did Rollors become a business?

I had some local woodworkers create a prototype and played it with my friends and family. I received a lot of positive feedback and even offers to purchase the prototype so I had more made and then it was on a “roll” from there. Starting in the Summer of 2009, Rollors was available only online at first, but now it’s available in retail stores like Menards, Meijer, REI, Camping World and various specialty toy/game stores. You can see the list at http://www.rollors.net/retailer_locations.html

Is this a full time or part time job?

It’s a part time job. My other job is an active duty officer in the Air Force.

Where is your business located?

Since I’m in the Air Force it moves from time to time. Currently I’m located in Dayton, Ohio. I started the business in Destin, FL.

What is the biggest challenge in selling, promoting, and marketing Rollors?

The most difficult part of Rollors is spreading the word about the game. I’m continually trying new and innovative ways to spread the word through press releases, gift guides, review sites, sending samples to various news stations. I try and team up with outdoor review sites, online retailers, etc. I’ve also done quite a few donations to organizations like The Boys Scouts, VA, USO, and Toys for Tots.

What sets your business apart from other similar businesses?

There’s no other game out there like this. Many people have told me they’re so impressed with the craftsmanship of the game, especially in a time where everything seems to be plastic. You can see some of the testimonials at http://www.rollors.net/testimonials.html

How are your games made? Is there any element of construction that is different than your peers?

They’re all had made from hard wood. The wood pieces are very durable. Here’s a quote from Jeremy, “The game pieces are all made of wood. They’re put together well, and will stand up to the usual wear and tear that games go through. The pieces have a quality look and feel. Numbers are neatly printed on to the discs.”

Do you create everything you sell? Do you hire anything out? Drop ship or Wholesale?

I use to have everything made in the USA but after the demand started to rise I had to find other means to lower the cost. It’s now manufactured overseas but continues to keep the same look from the original prototype I had made. It’s also been ASTM toy safety tested and approved. We do both Drop Shipping and Wholesale. For wholesale inquires you can email me at customerservice@rollors.net.

What is your favorite part of the business?

One of my favorites was when I first saw the game on retails shelves….I was on ecstatic.

Another favorite was when I went other to a friend’s house for a BBQ and someone had brought the game over. I asked them what they thought of the game and they said they’re kids play it all the time. Then I asked if they knew who invented it <with a smile on my face>. I flipped the game over on the side and showed them a blurb about the inventor.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your business?

I have another game that I’m researching the patent protection for. One thing I did with Rollors is made sure no other companies would try and knock off this classic and so I have multiple issued and patent pendings.

What are some fun facts about Rollors?

To date we’ve sold over 25,000 games. Rollors has won several prestigious awards from Creative Child, Dr. Toy top 100 games for 2010, Dr. Toy top 10 active toys, Major Fun in several categories and Mr. Dad.

Related posts:

1. Rollors : A Game of Skill and Chance
2. Cornhole Business Spotlight : Gameday Toss

The amount of skill going in to Cornhole Board designs seems to increase every year, and 2011 has been no exception.  We’ve been blown away by some of the boards that have been posted to the Cornhole Game Players Forum this year.  Creating unique boards would seem to be a challenge after years of amazing boards, but every quarter there are new people pushing the boundaries of creativity.

After sorting through over 300 pictures, we’ve finally managed to select our favorite boards of the third quarter of 2011.  All of our selections were posted to the Cornhole Game Players Forum(gallery section) from July to September of 2011.  Pictures are selected based on creativity of construction, design, & customization.  Poor photos of great boards are often omitted, as are pictures of only one board.

If you’d like to be included in future Best Boards events, all you have to do is share your boards in the CGP Forum Gallery.  Thanks to everyone who shared their awesome boards!

Related posts:

1. Top 14 Cornhole Boards :: Q4 2011
2. Top 12 Cornhole Boards :: Q2 2011
3. Top 12 Cornhole Boards :: Q1 2011

After sorting through over 330 pictures, we’ve finally managed to select our favorite boards of the second quarter of 2011.  All of our selections were posted to the Cornhole Game Players Forum (gallery section) between April and June of 2011.  Pictures are selected based on creativity of construction, design, & customization.  Poor photos of great boards are often omitted, as are pictures of only one board.

If you’d like to be included in future Best Boards events, all you have to do is share your boards in the CGP Forum Gallery.  Thanks to everyone who shared their awesome boards!

Related posts:

1. Top 14 Cornhole Boards :: Q3 2011
2. Top 14 Cornhole Boards :: Q4 2011
3. Top 12 Cornhole Boards :: Q1 2011

SO, you’ve been wanting the cornhole book for a while. Perhaps you’ve been struggling financially, or maybe you’re just waiting for someone to buy it for you. Whatever the case, here’s your chance.

Derrick Smash (derricksmash.com) and Mark Rogers (author of Cornhole: Throwing Bags in a Hole) have come to an awesome agreement. They have agreed to set an all-time low price record for a brand new paperback of Cornhole: Throwing Bags in a Hole to be sold via derricksmash.com. Not only is the book being sold for the strikingly low price of $12.99 (lowest publicly published price on the internet), but each book sold will have the autograph of the author himself, Mark Rogers!

Click Here to Take Advantage of this special offer! The holidays are coming up – what better way to spruce up your loved one’s cornhole equipment than with the original Cornhole Book! Buy it now!

Here is an example of what your inside cover may look like:

And here’s a photo of the book itself:

Related posts:

1. Cornhole, Throwing Bags in a Hole : Book Review

Even through the Winter months, people manage to build some pretty awesome boards.  We’ve sorted through almost 400 pictures to bring you our favorites.  All of our selections were posted to the Cornhole Game Players Forum (gallery section) from January through March of 2011.  Pictures are selected based on creativity of construction, design, & customization.  Poor photos of great boards are often omitted, which is a shame, really.

So here they are, the creat of the crop for early 2011.  Here’s to a great year!

Thanks to everybody who posted boards over at CGP. If we didn’t pick your boards this time, please keep posting, and maybe you’ll make the list next time around!

Related posts:

1. Top 12 Cornhole Boards :: Q2 2011
2. Top 14 Cornhole Boards :: Q3 2011
3. Top 14 Cornhole Boards :: Q4 2011

We’ve been working on a series of articles on the Outdoor Games Blog that will owners.  of Outdoor Game related businesses.  We’re especially interested in members of the Cornhole community who have started businesses. We want to know how these small businesses came to be, what makes them unique, their general workflow, and their plans for the future.

Our first Q&A is with Dan Sinnett, owner of GamedayToss.com.  Dan offered up some great information that really gives you an idea of what it’s like to be in the business of Cornhole.

Business Spotlight : Gameday Toss

What’s your business?

Gameday Toss manufactures and sells custom cornhole boards, bags and accessories. In the very near future we will also offer washers, ladder golf, beersbie, and other ‘backyard’ games.

How did you learn about the game that is/are the basis for your business?

I grew up in southern Wisconsin and we had a set of cornhole boards growing up. We played quite often but just thought it was a simple game that a few people in the area played. I didn’t realize its recent boom in popularity until a Saturday afternoon Brewer vs Cubs game at Miller Park in Milwaukee back in 2006….at that point I knew I had to start building and, as they say, “The rest is history”.

Talk about the moment your hobby became a business.

A peek into a custom paint booth/room that I built. Air is filtered coming in and out of the room (out vent in background) Keeps the dust down and creates a bit of a down draft for real nice finishes.

I have always had an interest in being an entrepreneur but didn’t want to do something where I was just another small fish in a big pond. I wanted to find something that was unique, something where I could produce the product and do a really good job at it, and something that was fun. The last thing I wanted is another “job” since I already have one of those. I always had a wide range of interests from wood working, programming and web development and a general interest in business and wanted to find some kind of way to bridge those into a “hobby with benefits”…. something fun that I could pull some extra cash by doing. Building, marketing and selling cornhole boards was going to be it!During the summer of 2006, my wife and I went with a bunch of friends to Miller Park in Milwaukee to watch the Brewers play the Cubs on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon. We tailgated in the parking lot as we always do and then as we headed into the stadium I was blown away by then number of people playing cornhole. I didn’t know that people knew about this game. I thought it was just a simple game that we had growing up but nothing that was that popular. I saw everything from the commercial boards to people’s home built versions and it got me wondering what kind of market there really was for this game.

That night when we got home I went on eBay to see if/how many boards were selling out there, as eBay is (well used to be, not as much anymore) a great resource for finding what a market is like and I was stunned by how many boards were out there and how much people were making on them.

I have always loved wood working and was looking for a good excuse to fill the garage with new tools and saw dust….and this was it! The next day I made a trip to Menards to pick up materials and a few tools and made my first set. That night I started building the original gamedaytoss.com website and it has been a very fun adventure since then.

When did this business start? Offline/Online

Officially as a business we have always been online. I started with about $100 to ‘invest’ and already had the knowledge and resources to host a web site and do basic, inexpensive advertising. I put together a shopping cart and started pushing traffic and low and behold people started buying boards. I distinctly remember getting the first automated email that an order had been placed…I couldn’t believe it! It was actually working. Ever since that email I have been hooked.The business will remain online only into the foreseeable future. There just is not a compelling enough argument for us to go “brick and mortar”. We do however try to interact with our customers as if they are standing there with us. We are very hands on and want to make sure that the product our customers buy is more than they expected. You can have the best products in the world but unless you have happy customers you won’t have a business.

How much of your life is this business? Is this a full time or part time job?  Employees?

Removing the paint stencil that I made using a vinyl cutter. Most people make decals with those cutters, I make paint screens. I prefer paint over decals.

This is a fun question to answer. Technically my full time job is as a Network Engineer for a large international Managed Services company. That is the job that I get out of bed at 7am to go to every day.

Gameday Toss is what keeps me up at night…but in a good way. It is safe to say that unless I am at my full time job, I am ‘working’ on Gameday Toss. Very rarely does it not come up in conversation or there are thoughts about marketing, product development, pending orders, process improvements, etc, etc bouncing through my head. It is a personal challenge, something that I have a lot of pride in and something that I can call mine.

I also have to say that I have been blessed with the most wonderful, supportive and understanding Wife in the world. Like I said, I spend a LOT of time on GDT and she is always right there with me, supporting me, helping me make decisions, being a great listener and giving some of the best ideas and advise. Without her, Gameday Toss would not be .

Where is your business located? Does that have an effect on your sales or distribution?

We are located in Madison, Wisconsin. I operate the business out of my home. The garage has turned into my workshop, leaving the vehicles on the street for the harsh Wisconsin winters. I have even built a completely enclosed and vented paint booth in the basement for finishing boards in a clean, dust free environment.We have always had good sales numbers. Considering what we have done for advertising I have been very happy with our volume. We are on the outskirts of the epicenter of cornhole being the Ohio River Valley region but we are close enough to still keep our fingers on the pulse of what is going in the world of cornhole.

From a distribution perspective I think we are very fortunate being centrally located in the US. It help to keep our shipping costs down and with Chicago only 2 hours away, shipments make it to the FedEx hub that night so our products move around the country very nicely.

Considering our central US location and the partnership we have established with FedEx we are able provide flat rate shipping rates using FedEx Ground to anywhere in the lower 48 states. Shipping starts at $9.95 for your entire order and will never be more than $19.95 for your order. If you have ever done calculations or shipped boards across country, you know it is not out of the question to have it cost $40 or more. We have shipped 5+ sets for a single order and charged $9.95 for shipping.

Our philosophy is that we are in the business to get our products into our customer’s hands, not take all of their money. So we will eat some of the shipping costs if it means our customers get the highest quality products that they will be able to enjoy for years and years to come.

Have you ever worked with other related groups or businesses? Online/Offline

About half done with the boards paint work. Picture of me with the design and the work in progress.

This year we have partnered with a custom cabinet builder from the Madison area who is now manufacturing our boards for us. This was a strategic move because I was quickly learning that there was no way I was going to be able to keep up with demand out of my garage.The tools that I have are not designed for larger volumes of production, nor am I; being the primary builder with occasional assistance from my brother-in-law. I needed to figure out a way to get extra hours in a day or find the ability to produce by way of tool investments and process improvements. I looked into figuring out how we could slow the Earth’s rotation to get a few more hours in a day, but all attempts failed J and investing $20,000 in my own shop was out of the question so the next logical step was to partner with a local wood worker who already had the tools and manpower to create our custom boards on a larger scale.

I auditioned a few cabinetmakers in the area and the ones we partnered with do UNBELIEVABLE work! I have a lot of pride in the work that I do and the boards that I made, but with their access to premium materials, which Menard’s, Lowe’s and Home Depot would only dream of carrying, and their machinery and attention to detail, the new 2011 Gameday Toss boards could almost be considered furniture!

We are always going to be a quality over quantity business, and our partnership has given us the ability to improve the quality AND quantity at the same time.

What aspect of your business do you feel is your weakness/room for growth/open area for new partnership?

A business that says the have no room for improvement is either blind or lying to you. We are no exception. We are constantly looking for ways that we can better serve our customers. We are not just interested in shipping a set of cornhole boards to a customer and calling it a day. We want to make sure that they are happy with every aspect of working with Gameday Toss. From product quality, web site experience, access to information, trust and security, we want to bring that “Main Street” shop feel to our Internet based store.Right now we are working on creating a series of informational videos ranging from product tours and demonstrations to general information about different wood, finishes, advantages/disadvantages, building techniques to buyers guides, just to name a few. We want our customers to know whom they are dealing with when they come to Gameday Toss and we want to build that relationship and trust with them.

We are also working on new ways to get customer feedback so we can ensure that we are meeting and exceeding their expectations. We want our customers to know that when they contact us it is not going into a black hole and you are not going to get a canned response. I personally answer all email and phone correspondence to Gameday Toss. In a day where call centers and response scripts seem to rule, we want to still believe in that personal communication to make sure our customers needs are met.

We are also constantly looking for ways to make our processes more efficient, our quality better and how to bring more value to our customers so they get the most they can for their dollar.

What sets your business apart from other similar businesses?

Custom boards completed. Very patriotic customer...I really enjoyed making these boards!

We honestly think that we make the highest quality product out there. Our 2011 boards are made with Ash frames and Birch surfaces with a price point of those who make their boards with pine 1×4’s. You can not beat the quality or the looks of these boards. The wood grain that you get using the Ash and Birch are beautiful. I wish my furniture in my house looked as nice as some of these boards
We also offer up front, flat rate shipping prices. We have all experienced this. You are on a website and want to buy something from them, you add the item to the cart and go to check out only to find that they want to charge you $25 to ship a 1lb box. It is those hidden charges that scare customers away.That is why we have our flat rate shipping program. All of our orders are shipped via FedEx Ground. Shipping starts at $9.95/per order and will never go higher than $19.95 for your ENTIRE order. We will ship up to 4 sets of bags (32 bags total) for $9.95 anywhere in the lower 48 states. Anything over 35lb then is adjusted based on the shipping address. We use 3 zones centered around Madison, Wisconsin. The closest zone will is $9.95 for all orders regardless of weight, zone 2 is $14.95 for orders over 34lbs and zone 3 is $19.95 for orders over 35lbs. That means if an board set is order and shipped to Southern California, it will only cost them $19.95 in shipping, not ~$50 that other places charge.
How are your games made? Is there any element of construction that is different than your peers?
All of our products are hand made. Our boards are made out of Ash and Birch. We use pocked hole joints to conceal the screws and it makes for a more finished appearance.
We spray all of our finishes using HVLP spray guns in our custom built spray booth. We use General Finishes Polycyclic clear coats on painted boards
Our bags are made of high quality USA made duck cloth. They are surged and then stitched again for extra strength and durability. We fill the bags with filtered/screened whole feed corn and all of our bags come with a 1 year warranty again breakage or manufacturer defect.
We believe in quality over quantity. Sure, I could farm out bags somewhere else and probably find less expensive manufacturing processes for our boards, but that would sacrifice quality and that is not what we are in the business of doing.

How do you market your business?

At first we primarily used internet marketing using PPC campaigns on major search engines. Last year we spent a lot of time and money updating our website to have better SEO and also started putting our products in more places like shopping.google.com and other similar sites to increase organic traffic. By the end of last season well over 40% of our traffic was organic, meaning we didn’t have to pay for it.This year we are focusing on building our social marketing campaigns and local advertising and word of mouth campaigns. We want to become more involved in sponsorships and donations to charities and youth organizations.

What is your favorite part of the business?

The adventure. The challenge. The unknown. I love to push my limits, which is how you learn. Trial and error and a lot of hours of reading to figure out new stuff or how to make things operate better. Most of all, I love having this business being of my creation. I answer to my customers and no one else. My failures are my fault and my successes are my fault. I love the feeling of freedom that you get when you run your own business.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your business?

We want to continue to grow as a company, but at the same time we don’t want to lose focus on what we do best. If we go into a market or launch a product we want to be the best at that. There are a lot of different things that the market demands, but what is the purpose of doing those if you can’t give them the attention that they need to be deployed correctly.We just want to keep building the business on the values that delivering the best products to our customers is our goal.

Working on a prototype for a electronic scoreboard with "Auto Scoring"

Related posts:

1. Business Spotlight : Rollors

It might be Winter, but there’s some great boards that got posted to the Cornhole Game Players Forum Gallery over the course of the last few months of 2010.  As we do every quarter, we’ve hand picked the cream of the crop to post here on the blog.

Pictures are picked for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost the boards are AWESOME.  Beyond that, we choose based on quality of the photo (framing, presentation), originality, and craftsmanship.  There were some sweet boards we wanted to include, but the pictures just weren’t up to par.  Sooo… remember that if you want to be included in the future!

A ton of really great boards just barely missed the cut, but we settled in with 20 that we felt were the highlights of the quarter.  Huge thanks to everybody who posted in 2010.  I have been blown away by the quality of the boards that have been posted.  The creativity and craftsmanship are top notch.

Here they are!  Please comment below and let us know what you think!  Click the images below to see the full gallery.

Related posts:

1. Top 27 Cornhole Boards :: Q3 2010
2. Top 40 Cornhole Boards :: Q2 2010
3. Top 16 Cornhole Boards :: Q1 2010

My name is Derrick Pugh – I own and [85% of the time] fully operate derricksmash.com. I’m here to talk about my evolved perception of the Sport of Cornhole and provide my simple idea of what will ‘save’ the sport.

When I accidentally got into this industry of Cornhole building about 6 years ago, I had one mission: to build so many cornhole sets that no other builder in the country was able to compete. Big dreaming, huh? No, that isn’t feasible – with my resources anyways…nor would it be good for the Sport. Spreading the name of derricksmash.com isn’t nearly as effective for business as it would be to simply spread the name of Cornhole first!

Then I started to know the community a lot better. Spent last summer playing in tons of tournaments, met a lot of fellow players, many big names in the game (Randy, Matt, Vanderver, etc) and took an entirely different approach to derricksmash.com’s perception of “self”. A lot of these big players would reminisce of the game, as if it were an ancient sport or something. These people spoke with phrases such as, “remember the good ole’ days of cornhole?”, “…it used to be”, “…the game needs to come back”, etc, etc. All of these people saw something that I didn’t because they were part of it this whole time – you can go so far as to say they triggered the cornhole revolution in the first place.

After having some talks, chats and emails with enough people, I eventually got a mentality of “Wow, I had this all wrong. It’s not all about competition, It’s about community…and sharing moments within said community!”. This one really hit it on the spot:

“…the sport is in a critical stage right now in my opinion…it could blow up and become a staple sport like softball, or it could fizzle out and 10yrs from now we’ll be saying, ‘remember bags?’ (aka cornhole)”
-Rudy Rutherford

All I was doing this whole time was selling derricksmash.com products with all intents of saying “F you” to the competition – what I should have been doing was realizing that the products I was selling, like every other builder, was part of a bigger picture – that’s spreading the name of Cornhole. Don’t worry, I now see it that way.

Cornhole’s dieing in the Midwest. That’s the reality right now. Perhaps if I had spent the last 6 years spreading the name of Cornhole instead of hocking off my products, maybe I could have prevented the state we’re in now…maybe if only a tiny bit.

I met some of my competitors, Clinton from Ripped Boards and Chris from Naperville Bags. They are stand-up guys and their companies offer something another doesn’t. I respected Chris when I met him for many reasons. For one, he wasn’t the douche I was expecting him to be with his massive inventory and huge sales reports. I figured he was all about that and nothing more – almost envious of him because I thought he became what I used to want to be. He became that “big boy” in the Cornhole Building industry but he also had something else: being well-known by in the Tournament Side of the Sport – the real community of the sport. I was WOW’d. As for Clinton, I personally feel he used to be the same way I was (screw everyone – my company or no one), but is now on the same side of the field that I am…and I’m glad.

Then I talked to Steve Vanderver on the phone for what seemed to be a few hours! He had just recently created the Cornhole Players Association to help fight the foreseen drop in Cornhole’s Reputation. He was upset, emotional and confused about what happened to his beloved sport in the last couple years. “…annual tournaments that used to draw 90+ teams are now barely able to get enough for a 20 team mini tournament”. He talked to me about how he saw this a long time ago (due to a bigger organization) and when he left that organization, he realized that he had to go back because he was classified as “too good” or “pro” to play in many of the smaller, private [and in my opinion, more fun] tournaments.

I also feel [and hope] I gave him some insight, too – I am not speaking for him in any way. He’s out in the East Midwest, and what he sees is totally different than what I see, being here in Chicago. In Chicago, the sport is still waiting for it’s initial BOOM. We got a little one last summer, but this summer should be bigger. If not, next summer will. And out West, not many people are playing this game at all. I told Steve, “Let’s not only worry about reigniting the spark in the over saturated area of the Midwest you reside in, but remember that out West and probably 80% of the country has probably still never seen the Sport!”.

My buddy’s parents in Surprise, AZ have one of my sets and they say people are going APESH*T over it! I got a few orders out that way because of this and I pretty much shipped them for free just to get some Cornhole boards out that way. Also, there is a cornhole tournament taking place next weekend on USC Campus (University of Southern California) to benefit Relay for Life – they are expecting a huge turnout! Out there, it’s something new and exciting. derricksmash.com has donated $200 in product to this event. USC is way out of the cornhole’s heartland and they are just now starting to see the excitement of cornhole and tournaments like this are sprouting everywhere out there. If you look at the customer map on my website, you’ll see the major lack of my company’s cornhole products East of the Mississippi River. The “centralization” of cornhole is probably why the Midwest is losing it’s flare. A lot of the areas of our country that haven’t yet been exposed to cornhole have one advantage when it comes to the introduction of a new sport – they don’t have a winter. Growth and reputation of cornhole will spread year round – not like the Midwest…where the sport finally gets its spotlight of growth, then is abruptly shot down and throw into hibernation after out our first November snowfall forcing us to start all over again this time each year. Florida, Texas, Mississippi, SoCal, Arizona, New Mexico, etc are all places that haven’t yet been properly introduced to cornhole – but once they are, people will be hooked year round – no downtime. These states occasionally get snow, but it is melted within a day due to 65+ degree days. Once the name of cornhole is spread, the sport won’t die. We need to make sure we prioritize spreading the Sport’s name before it loses it’s name in the small region it exists now – the Midwest.

Basically what I’m saying is don’t give up hope on the sport of cornhole just because your town or state seems to have lost it’s flare – the sport needs to be known nationwide – worldwide – to get a real effect. Trust me, if the sport is dieing in Kentucky, but these same Kentuckians hear that people in San Francisco are now hot on the game, a rivalry will form and those cornhole boards will get dusted off. Rivalry = Sport = Addiction = Awesome. All the places in the country that are “cornhole’d out” are basically ticking time bombs for exploding once again and I think that will come with the increase of Cornhole’s footprint as a nation, not cornhole’s local reputation as it is now. Keep playing folks! Keep your city, state, town or whatever at least a bit involved…because when there are enough little seeds from coast to coast, rivalry forms and everything in the middle will fill itself in. It’s sport – it’s how every sport still exists and survives. It’s how any brand becomes a “brand”.

If there were only four MLB teams in the league, and all of them were in the same geographic region, I assure you MLB would be as cornhole is now…only known locally. MLB and all other “leagues” and “associations” survive because they have a “representative” team in pretty much every major city. If one team is doing bad, so does their representing region’s morale, but the sport in a whole doesn’t struggle to thrive because of all the other teams in the country (ie: Chicago Cubs…haha). Right now the sport of cornhole fills the geographic triangle created by Western Chicago, Nashville and Eastern Ohio – that’s not big enough…especially because “Chicago” was probably pushing it…I really don’t think the spread truly this far yet.

The popularity epicenters of the Sport of Cornhole need to look like this:

(source: www.studybreaks.com)
Cornhole needs enough branding throughout the country’s population spikes. This is the next step and is the only way to ensure the future of cornhole.

So, players, keep playing – Builders, keep building and if someone out West contacts you and wants a cornhole set, make it happen. If you can’t make it happen, refer them to someone who can, instead of just telling the client, “sorry, can’t help you”.

Cliffnotes: Spread the game enough, and it won’t die.

cheers, derricksmash

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It’s Spring! That means it’s contest time on the Outdoor Game Players Network! It’s been a long Winter, and it’s time to dust off the tools and get to building your first games of the 2011 season. As a little encouragement, we have teamed up with 4 great sponsors to reward you for your efforts.

Here’s how it works.  Build or Make any game we feature on the Outdoor Game Players site, next, post your photos to the Gallery section in the OGP Forum, then give us a link in the Official Contest Thread in the forum.  Four winners will be randomly chosen to receive one of 4 prizes from our sponsors!

We have 4 great sponsors for this one!

Ripped Bags has offered up a set of their STORM BAGS and a matching Cornhole Bag Carrier. STORM BAGS are ACA Style Resin Bags – Canvas on both sides – Color choice is upto the winner.
T’s Yard Toys awarding a winner with their Red Eye Resin Bags.  These all-weather, Resin filled bags are great for Cornhole play in any weather.
Naperville Bags is giving away a set of their Slick “n” Stick bags.  A ‘best of both worlds’, these Stick ‘n Slick bags have one side that is duck, and a second that is a Ralph Lauren Micro Fiber.
DerrickSmash.com has tossed in a set of their Standard Cornhole bags.  These “bulletproof” bags are made to regulation standards  and backed with a one year warranty.

Check out the Contest Page for full contest information.

Related posts:

1. Make a Game, Win a Game!
2. Enter to Win a Ladder Golf Game!
3. Win Free Cornhole Bags from Becca Sports