Adam Minter, Columnist

Cornhole Is a Popular ESPN Sport Now. Don’t Be Mad.

When the network delayed the MLB’s All-Star Selection Show for the bean bag-throwing competition, angry baseball fans needed some perspective.

July 12, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC

By Adam Minter

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."

A game everyone can get into.
Photographer: Andrew Leinster/Getty Images Europe

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ESPN faced a dilemma last Sunday. A tense, live professional cornhole match was running long and likely to bump into the scheduled start of Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star Selection Show. What to do? The network went with cornhole, delaying baseball programming for several minutes of bag tossing (the Selection Show eventually aired in full).

Perplexed baseball fans vented on social media (of course, they did). The Selection Show is a gateway to MLB’s popular All-Star Game, after all. Cornhole, despite being featured on ESPN for nearly a decade, is still widely associated with backyard barbecues and tailgates.