We should all be taking a good hard look at the American Cornhole League (ACL). Their business model is working great. They control the equipment, pro status qualifications, the rules, the leagues, the weekly blind draw games, the national events, the pro tour, the ESPN footage, the video on demand footage, etc.
Cornhole was nothing more than a backyard cookout game 10 years ago. Now it's on TV all of the time with major sponsors like Pit Boss Grills.
Every tour stop is loaded full of different formats which attract all types of players, pro and amateur. They have Pro, Advanced, Competitive, and Social divisions. Each division has several formats (singles, doubles, 4 player teams, co-ed, mens, womens, seniors, blind draw partner doubles, etc.). Each tour stop takes almost a full week to complete.
They have weekly local leagues, monthly regional tournaments, monthly national tournaments, national championships, world championships, and then a bunch of small weekly blind draw tournaments. All sanctioned by the ACL which tracks your results online and gives you points for how well you finish, on top of the tournament cash.
In order to be a pro, and complete in pro events, you need to score a certain amount of points throughout the previous season for pro qualification. If you don't perform well enough, you can enter an annual pro qualifier singles tournament which is run similar to derby city classic where you get randomly paired up with opponents the field keeps getting narrowed down until there are 32 people left who all qualify.
All tournaments entries, payouts, registration, tournament listings are done electronically through the ACL's website/phone app.
I can go on and on but this getting long so I'll stop.
It's still not lucrative enough for the pros to quit their jobs and play full time but it's come a long way and the payouts are getting better every year.
