Kansas City area is the hub for pro cornhole this weekend. How to join the fun
The American Cornhole League is coming to Overland Park this weekend to showcase the best players of the popular lawn game and invite amateurs to play alongside the pros.
A massive tournament with more than 500 players pre-registered will take place Friday through Sunday at the Advent Health Sports Park at Bluhawk.
Cornhole is a game where players toss fabric bean bags at a raised, angled board. Players score 3 points by getting a bean bag through a hole in the board and one point for each bean bag on the board.
Open events for amateurs run all three days this weekend, allowing people of all skillsets to join. The main event each day is a live look at the first week of the ACL Pro teams competition, where people from across the country travel to compete.
Pre-registration for the 2026 Kansas City Signature Open has closed, but walk-up registration is still available for prospective players. Spectators can check out the action for free.
The professional tournament is being broadcast nationally by ESPN and streaming on the ACL social media pages.
A spokesperson for the event said ACL tournaments give people a new perspective of the popular backyard game.
“If no one has ever seen the scale of an ACL Open, this is a perfect one to come see,” said Athena Delgado, an ACL spokeswoman. “It’s a really amazing production, especially if you’ve only been in your backyard or maybe attended some of those smaller events.”
How to participate
The event is free and open to the public. People can show up and enjoy the action each day at the sports park at Bluhawk, 16201 Shawnee Dr, Overland Park, KS 66223.
Around 550 people are already registered to compete. Players are coming in from across the country, likely representing almost every state, Delgado said.
Walk-up registration is available for most tournaments, but not the pro events. Registration fees vary by class and number of players. Rates can be found on the event website.
Organizers recommend prospective participants arrive about an hour before the tournament they want to enter begins to secure a spot.
People considering which tournament to enter can participate in the new ACL Cornhole Performance Index (CPI), which tests players’ skills and places them in a category based on their skill-level.
“We have tiers all the way from your very top-notch pro level all the way down to our… novice group that can just kind of come in and compete,” Delgado said.
There are also walk-up play options, where people who want to try cornhole without joining a tournament.
There are more than $150,000 in prizes and cash payouts as part of the tournament this weekend, Delgado said.
“We should be pretty close to about 90 sets of boards that are here. So it’s pretty phenomenal,” Delgado said.
Building community through cornhole
Delgado said she felt like Kansas City was a good choice for this year’s competition. The ACL has hosted events in the metro before, and recent developments in the area were a draw for the tournament to return, Delgado said.
Events hosted by ACL come with the tagline “Anyone can play, anyone can win,” a nod to the organization’s focus on accessibility, Delgado said.
One of the courts featured at the event is a limitless league, where people with special abilities and adaptive needs can play cornhole with accommodations.
“Community is one of the biggest things, I would say, is at the heart of everything that we do at the American Cornhole League, and you feel it, you feel the energy and the excitement in the room,” Delgado said.
Doors open around 8 a.m. Friday to kick off the 2026 Kansas City Signature Open. Professional play begins at 9 a.m. with events lasting all day through at least 7 p.m.
Saturday, events are scheduled from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday events run from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
A full event schedule can be found on the 2026 Kansas City Signature Open website.
