ESPN+ opens Tri-Cities Open with women’s, senior and junior singles

ESPN+ put the ACL Tri-Cities Open’s women’s, senior and junior open singles into the weekend’s first live window on Friday, June 19, giving the division immediate visibility on one of the sport’s biggest platforms. For the American Cornhole League, it was a clear signal that Tri-Cities was not being treated as a side event but as a full broadcast property.

The Watch ESPN catalog laid out the event in three straight pieces: Friday’s women’s, senior and junior open singles, Saturday’s doubles, and Sunday’s singles. That sequencing gave the Tri-Cities Open a defined three-day identity and turned the Pasco stop into a weekend showcase rather than a single isolated stream. ESPN’s on-demand library already includes ACL programming, and the Tri-Cities listing added another piece to a growing cornhole footprint inside the network’s streaming ecosystem.

The stakes in Pasco were real. The official event listing says the tournament offered more than $25,000 guaranteed in prizes and cash payouts, while local coverage pegged the field at about 300 players and crowds at up to 1,200 or more. The Tri-Cities Open was the first-ever ACL tournament in the Tri-Cities and Pasco area, and the broadcast window matched the scale of that debut.

The event ran June 19-21 at HAPO Center, 6600 Burden Blvd., Pasco, Washington, with tickets available and more than 1,000 parking spaces on site. Visit Tri-Cities and HAPO Center both described the same basic structure: Friday tournaments, Saturday doubles, and Sunday singles. That setup gave players multiple paths to cash and added pressure to make every bracket matter, especially in the earliest divisions that opened the weekend.

Local stakeholders see the trip as bigger than a single stop on the schedule. Cody Lewis, a board member and player for the 3 City Slingers, said the turnout could draw competitors from every state. Mark Leonard, Washington’s ACL state director and club president of the 3 City Slingers, pointed to the format’s flexibility, where a pro could be paired with a beginner. With ESPN+, YouTube and Facebook carrying the action, Tri-Cities got the kind of exposure that can turn a first-time stop into a place where the next recognizable names in cornhole start to emerge.