Lesser known sports are catching TV airtime as a result of higher fan followings.
An educated personal take from the blog of Ryan Rickard as of May 2020.
When most people think of televised sports they think of baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, and American football, but new rises in smaller league sports have led to changes in programming. According to a study by Whistle Sports Broadcasting fifty-two percent of Gen Z males (ages 13 to 21) spend more time following nontraditional sports than traditional sports. Nontraditional sports mentioned include obstacle course racing, cornhole, disc golf, rugby, and Spikeball™. Professional leagues for each of these sports are now not only available via online livestream but also via television on ESPN, ESPN 2, and ESPN 3.
Factors leading into this new trend could include advertising overloads in traditional sports, a step away from traditional professional and “celebrity status” athletes, or the general need for new entertainment. For example, the American football league known as the NFL has been around for 100 years, has over 32 athletes with “celebrity status” (at least one per team), and features advertising not only between commercials but in game via naming rights and visual advertising. In contrast, professional obstacle course racing is a consistently updating sport featuring seemingly “everyday” people and features much less advertising than what is seen in traditional televised sports.
Cornhole
Cornhole (also known as bean bag, bean toss, corn toss, or soft horseshoes) is a traditional lawn game like horseshoes except players use wooden boxes and corn-filled bags instead of horseshoes and metal stakes. The game has become extremely popular as considered a backyard lawn game that has also been a staple of tailgating due to its association with college partygoers.
In 2005 the American Cornhole Organization (ACO) was formed as a professional tournament style league for players to enjoy the game at a higher prestige (ACO, 2020). Since as early as the year 2013 the league has seen television spots on ESPN sister channels. In 2018 the league held 20 regional tournaments across the country and the organization’s 13th World Championships which boasted nearly $70,000 in cash and prizes (Campana, 2019).
Today ESPN 3 regularly features cornhole games from the American Cornhole League (ACL). This league is unique in that it features five levels of play including ACL Juniors, ACL College, ACL Championship, ACL Pro, and WCO (World Cornhole Organization and Cup). Juniors gives opportunities for young people to earn scholarship winnings while higher leagues are features on ESPN and feature real prize money winnings (ACL, 2020).
The appeal behind cornhole must be the combination of the players and the game concept. Due to its backyard origins cornhole appears to be a game that the average person could learn to excel at directly in their backyard. Televised games often feature teams of players from very diverse backgrounds and demographics with a wide range of ages, ethnicity, shapes and sizes, and players coming from many locations.
Spikeball™
Spikeball is a ball and net game like volleyball that features one small ball and a round net that pairs of two players attempt to volley upon. The object of the game is to hit the ball off the net in such a way that the opposing team cannot successfully return it.
The game was released in 2008 by the Spikeball™ brand CEO, Chris Ruder, in order to revive an outdated sport entitled “Roundball” that was considered popular in the year 1990 (Wiki, 2020). In a statement by Ruder published on his website he states, “I launched Spikeball Inc in 2008 with no real clue about starting a business, let alone launching a new sport. Yet, here we are with 4+ million players (all over the world), 24 full-time employees, 150+ tournaments every year, and tons of love from Shark Tank, Casey Neistat, Dude Perfect, The Today Show, Inc Magazine, countless professional athletes and celebrities.”
Today Spikeball is regularly featured on ESPN 2 and gained a massive following from Chris Ruder’s appearance on the ABC show “Shark Tank” where he pitched the idea of the game to multiple million and billionaire investors. On the show an accredited investor and entrepreneur, Daymond John, offered the CEO a $500,000 deal for a stake in the game brand.
Like cornhole, Spikeball has become popular for its’ players and availability. According to the brand website, the game is a “play anywhere” sport and has been seen being played in backyards, on beaches, in gyms, on campgrounds, and even in the water.
References Used in this Blog Post
ACL. (2020). American Cornhole League - About. Retrieved from https://www.iplaycornhole.com/about ACO. (2020). About the ACO. Retrieved from https://americancornhole.com/about-the-aco2/ Campana, D. (2019, April 23). 6 Nontraditional Trending Sports for 2019. Retrieved from https://sportsplanningguide.com/6-nontraditional-trending-sports-for-2019/ Darcy, K. (2018, July 4). How Spikeball became mainstream. Retrieved from https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/23915064/how-spikeball-became-mainstream Ruder, C. (2020). Spikeball - About. Retrieved from https://spikeball.com/pages/about-us Sweeney, E. (2018, October 19). Study: 52% of Gen Z males prefer nontraditional sports. Retrieved from https://www.marketingdive.com/news/study-52-of-gen-z-males-prefer-nontraditional-sports/540085/ Wiki. (2020, March 17). Roundnet. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundnet
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