BEAN BAG BONANZA: Tossing aside cynics' doubts, Stacey Moore is lifting cornhole to unexpected heights.

• Author: Walton, Carroll

Cornhole has become continually more popular since emerging in the 1980s as a favorite game at bars and football tailgates. But only one person, Charlotte's Stacey Moore, has had the vision to elevate it from a game to a sport.

The 52-year-old commissioner of the American Cornhole League is seven years into a venture that no one, including his friends and family, saw as ending well.

The privately held business has a regular slot with ESPN, where it has periodically attracted more viewers than more established sports. It also has a three-year contract with CBS Sports, a database of 250,000 players in 15 countries, and a stake in manufacturing cornhole boards. Sponsors, including Bacardi, Discount Tire, Johnsonville and Mike's Hard Lemonade, view cornhole as a savvy pitch to the target market of 21- to 40-year-old males.

"There was no one that said, 'Hey, Stacey, I think this is a great idea,'" Moore says. "Other than cornhole players. They said, 'If you can bring us prize money, we'll come play for your league.'"

In 2015, when he established the ACL, Moore spent $50,000 in prize money. Last year, the company paid out more than $5 million to contestants, including $1 million to tournament winners among the 250 professionals in the league's top division.

The 1991 graduate of N.C. State University is the son and grandson of textile executives. His grandfather rose from mopping the factory floor to CEO of Reeves Brothers, a New York textile company that had North Carolina plants. His father, William Moore, was a top executive there and later owned Spartanburg, South Carolina-based Sally Foster Gift Wrap, a school fundraising product.

Moore graduated from college a year early to help his family launch the Greensboro Gators professional basketball franchise in Greensboro. It folded after just one season in the Global Basketball Association.

After working as portfolio manager for Bank of America and later for his own investment firm, Moore started Tailgating Ventures, which combined his love for sports and game-day fun. What he discovered was the potential to grow cornhole.

Moore, whose office is in Rock Hill, South Carolina, discussed how he saw what nobody else did. This interview was edited for clarity.

How did you land on cornhole?

Everywhere we went, people were playing cornhole way more seriously than other tailgating games. I thought, "What is it about this particular tailgating game that gets everyone so amped up?" I started talking to...