Wedding & Event Venue Near Rock Hill, SC.

It's the fourth consecutive year for the championships to be held in Rock Hill.

ROCK HILL, S.C. — Rock Hill is about to become the center of the cornhole world again this week as the American Cornhole League championships return with the lights, cameras, and coverage from ESPN.

The championship, which is back in town for the fourth consecutive year, runs from Saturday, July 29 through Sunday, August 6. A news release from the City of Rock Hill's Parks, Recreation & Tourism department shares it's a chance for local fans to enjoy watching the game and be part of the coverage. The coverage also aligns well with recent moves by the league; the department said in 2021, the ACL moved its headquarters and manufacturing site to Rock Hill, while also establishing permanent courts for recreation and social activity.

"Back in 2015 our commissioner had the idea, 'well, I love tailgating and I love cornhole,'" said ACL Chief Marketing Officer Trey Ryder. Continuting to paraphrase, he said "'l see all of these people playing at this high level. Why don’t I try to professionalize the sport?' It just built from there. It's giving an outlet to players who love the game."

The championship promises more than $700,000 in payouts and 30 events according to the department. Many events will air on ESPN or on the CBS Sports Network.

The ACL world championship brings in about 2,000 players to compete. Officials said all 50 states and three different countries are represented.

"I played it just in the backyard when my kids were small. Just for fun and then a couple of years ago I decided to take it more seriously," said Connie Altice, who went pro a few years ago.

Altice, who came in second place in women's singles in 2022, said it's about more than just tossing a bean bag through a hole in a board.

"The more you do it the better you get," she said. "It's about being consistent. Play smart, and there is some defense in the game."

Ultimately, it's a sport bringing people of all different backgrounds and skill levels together.

"What's cool about our pro-division is all of the different personalities and demographics. I just saw a top 10 player in the world get a win and he is 14 years old and our oldest pro is 70,” said Ryder. “Our slogan is anyone can play and anyone can win and we kind of live by that."

From fans to players, city officials said they expect up to 15,000 people to come out to the festivities over the course of the competition. It's a boost to the local economy.

"It’s a 9-day event, so we are looking at estimating $3-4 million -- that is people spending, lodging, spending on food while they are here, convenience stores and gas," said Laurie Helms with the city of Rock Hill.

Some events during the championship will require tickets. Click here for more information.

For the latest breaking news, weather and traffic alerts, download the WCNC Charlotte mobile app and enable push notifications.

Part of the ESPN coverage during the week includes ESPN8: The Ocho, which returns to Rock Hill for the second year in a row on Friday, August 4. The department said The Ocho will offer 17 hours of unique sports events on ESPN2, all happening at Manchester Meadows and the Rock Hill Sports & Event Center. The top-level events for 11 sports are set to be featured that day and open to the public, except for the SuperHole IV Championship.

Additionally, fans can enjoy a Fan Fest experience at Manchester Meadows with food vendors, music, kid's activities, and an adult Big Wheels course. Ocho events at Manchester Meadows are free to attend.

You can stream WCNC Charlotte on Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV, just download the free app.

The following events will be part of The Ocho coverage on August 4. Events listed with SEC are happening at the Sports & Events Center, while events with MM listed are happening at Manchester Meadows:

Visit York County is partnering with the department for visitor services throughout the week

ROCK HILL — As airport director Steven Gould looked out of his office window in July 2022, he saw jet after jet after jet lining up on the runway — and they weren’t stopping.

In a span of three hours, nearly 27 private jets from places like Gonzaga University and the University of Texas landed at the Rock Hill-York County Airport. In a normal month, the airport receives over 125 jets, or 4 jets per day, not 27 in two hours.

So Gould did something he never did before. He shut off his computer, climbed onto the roof and started waving his arms to direct traffic.

“I’ve never gotten another call from our airport director that said, ‘I’m on the roof watching 25 jets come in,’ ” said Jeremy Winkler, director of government affairs for Rock Hill. “That definitely has not happened.”

But that’s just the Adidas sportswear weekend in Rock Hill — the largest sporting event of the year at the largest sporting facility in Rock Hill.

From June 5-9, Adidas returned for the second time to host the championship for its high school basketball league. The city bustled with college basketball coaches, NBA scouts, ESPN reporters and droves of the country’s best high school players. Even Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards and former NBA champion David West stopped by.

Sports tourism has become a central priority for the former mill town south of Charlotte, with facilities for BMX, cornhole, tennis, and disc golf. The 170,000-square-foot Sports and Event Center with nine basketball courts is the largest economic boom of them all.

The space is part of an effort to rejuvenate the Knowledge Park corridor near downtown, where Rock Hill’s largest textile site, the Bleachery, was once located. The area now features the American Cornhole League headquarters, offices, restaurants, hotels, apartments, a brand new food hall and a forthcoming 400,000-square-foot multipurpose building called “The Thread.”

The corridor orbits around the Sports and Event Center, which hosts indoor sporting events during nearly 50 weekends of the year, including, volleyball, boxing, cheer and basketball.

“It’s the big driver right now,” Parks, Recreation and Tourism director John Taylor said.

The Parks, Recreation and Tourism department estimates the center generates nearly $40 million in economic revenue — half of the department’s yearly total.

Visit York County CEO Andy Clinton said youth sports impacts the city differently than other forms of tourism because it attracts both the players and their families.

“Your impact will double or triple compared to your meeting or your conference where it’s just an individual coming,” Clinton said.

How Rock Hill has become a ‘mecca’ for cornhole, the backyard game gone big time

And of those 50 tournaments at the Sports and Event Center, there’s one that stands out from the rest: Adidas.

After touring the facility, the $33 billion sneaker company chose to host its boys’ and girls’ championships in Rock Hill starting in 2022.

The entire city sees the impact of the event. Blue flags hung on Dave Lyle Boulevard welcoming the teams; 6-foot-8 kids played cornhole at Hobo’s restaurant near Winthrop University; and all 2,000 hotel rooms in city limits are booked.

But maybe no entity sees it more than the Rock Hill airport — as college coaches and NBA scouts pour into the city on private jets.

“It’s all hands on deck,” Gould said.

When the tournament arrived in 2022, airport officials knew it would be a busy weekend. But the airport, which doesn’t take commercial flights, had no way to prepare. Without a control tower at the airport, pilots don’t need to inform staff when they are landing.

Officials could only wait until that first day of the 2022 tournament when the jets of college coaches arrived en masse at the airport.

Over the five-day weekend in 2022, the airport pumped more than 10,000 gallons of jet fuel, about half the monthly average at 21,000 gallons.

This year, Adidas split up its boys’ and girls’ tournaments.

Still, the tournament registered one of the airport’s busiest weekends, as 65 jets landed and 9,800 gallons of jet fuel were pumped.

The airport makes 13 cents per gallon, with Skytech, an airplane supply company, receiving most of the profit from fuel. But Winkler said the Adidas weekend helps them in other ways.

“There’s a lot of that exposure that it’s hard to put an economic number on, but we know that people remember us and think about that later on,” Winkler said.

But the rush is not over. From July 20-23, the girls’ tournament will return — and the airport will be buzzing again.

In a notice filed last week, Delaware, Ohio-based packaging producer Greif informed the state of South Carolina its plans to close its tube and core manufacturing site in Rock Hill.

The company submitted a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice, or WARN letter, to the state July 5, and according to a report from South Carolina Public Radio, Grief Director of Corporate Communications T.J. Struhs says the closure is part of a consolidation of five of the company’s facilities in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area. Rock Hill is located approximately 25 miles south of Charlotte.

The South Carolina WARN Report shows layoffs beginning Sept. 3 and the official permanent closure date as Oct. 30. Struhs tells South Carolina Public Radio that 90 employees will be impacted by the closure but that Greif is trying to find new positions for all affected.

Recycled paperboard tubes and cores are manufactured at the Rock Hill site, which was one of more than 80 facilities Greif acquired when it purchased Caraustar Industries Inc. in 2019 in a deal worth $1.8 billion.

Grief does not mention which of its other sites are part of the consolidation plant in the Charlotte area, but the company has had a “challenging” first half of the year. Despite having the second-best overall first quarter in its history and second-best second-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), Grief reports decreased financial performance in a number of segments, particularly its Paper Packaging & Services (PPS) division.

Low mill volumes impacted Greif’s PPS division in back-to-back quarters. The company reports a $19.4 million decline in gross profit, a $12.5 million decline in operating profit and a $12.5 million decline in adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter.

The company took 77,000 tons worth of economic downtime in the second quarter in the PPS division after taking 94,000 tons worth in the first quarter, and Greif says tubes/cores and sheet demand are down double digits against 2022’s figures.

“Despite operating in an environment of ongoing demand uncertainties, our teams have remained agile and resolutely focused on delivering exceptional value to our shareholders,” Greif President and CEO Ole Rosgaard said during a second-quarter earnings call.

Getting shovels in the ground probably was the easiest part of Wednesday morning’s activity at the coming STIWA US site in Rock Hill. But there’s still plenty of work to come.

On a soggy stretch of property off Porter Road, business leaders from across the state, country and even Austria gathered in a slight rain to break ground. On a manufacturing site, yes, but also on new ideas and opportunities for how Rock Hill can grow areas that haven’t always had those opportunities.

Mayor John Gettys said the coming building on about 30 acres will create jobs, but also wealth for some of the poorer parts of Rock Hill through a tax increment district. STIWA will bring high-wage manufacturing jobs and a route for people to get their feet in the door for them, through apprenticeships.

“Our future as a community, along with STIWA, is one that more people can fulfill or at least work toward fulfilling, the promise of the American dream,” Gettys said.

STIWA began in 1972 and remains a family-owned business. Andreas Prokesch, CEO of STIWA US, said the company began investigating in the U.S. market in 2016 and began investment almost two years ago. Prokesch has 43 employees. The new building not far off I-77 in Rock Hill, beside Mount Holly Elementary School, will be 75,000 square feet with a two-story office and a workshop. There will be space for 160 employees and already there’s planning for a future addition.

STIWA will operate in three shifts and work in machinery automation, parts machining, manufacturing software, after sales and supply chain management.

Austrian Ambassador Petra Schneebauer said STIWA is one of Austria’s flagship companies for advanced manufacturing that will be a wonderful addition to Rock Hill. Austria is the fastest growing country for foreign direct investment in the U.S. with a more than 50% increase in the last five years, Schneebauer said, creating thousands of jobs in both countries.

“The Carolinas have developed to be one of the most popular regions for Austrian companies to establish their U.S. presence,” Schneebauer said.

A main reason is workforce development. Technical college programs and apprenticeships in South Carolina support home-grown and attracted businesses long after groundbreaking.

“The rest of the United States is learning from South Carolina,” said Brent Parton, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.

The country also can learn from apprenticeship efforts that date back decades in Austria. The U.S. and Austrian governments signed a partnership agreement to grow commerce in both. Parton said potential apprentice students at the STIWA site in Rock Hill are probably in middle school today. Companies like STIWA, Parton said, can help with a manufacturing renaissance in this country by changing minds of Americans about apprenticeships as solid career path opportunities.

“As we are rebuilding the American manufacturing workforce, that we aren’t rebuilding from scratch,” Parton said. “That we’re learning from what South Carolina has done through this partnership. We’re building on what the Austrians have done for many, many years.”

Ashely Teasdel, deputy Secretary of Commerce in South Carolina, said the electrical equipment and mobility market work STIWA does are critical needs for industry. The company can make growth and expansion possible for other companies, or make others more likely to consider South Carolina for their own projects.

“Automation plays such an essential role in attracting manufacturers to the United States, and keeping them here,” Teasdel said.

Markus Achleitner is minister for economic affairs for Upper Austria. That state and South Carolina are similar, Achleitner said, in how they drive business for their countries. Both have strong industrial and automotive presences. Achleitner attended the groundbreaking as part of an already scheduled business mission to South Carolina to grow economic ties between the regions.

“There are so many chances all over the world,” Achleitner said. “And our Upper Austrian companies take these chances.”

Late last year York County approved an economic incentive agreement with STIWA for the 2657 Meadow Road site. Plans are to have the new North American headquarters site operational by fall of next year. The site will be expandable, the company said then, up to 300,000 square feet. The project involves a roughly $30 million investment in the first five years.

Peter Sticht, CEO of STIWA Holding GmbH Austria, said the new Rock Hill site isn’t the only commitment the company has to the U.S. but it is a significant one.

“The new building is not only a physical structure, but a symbol of growth, innovation and our strong presence in the American market,” Sticht said.

A large data center company has bought more than $10 million worth of York County property. All in an area primed for new development.

York County land records show QTS York I LLC bought three properties in Lake Wylie on July 10 for almost $7 million. The properties combine for more than 230 acres. The largest of the three parcels is 220 acres at 2107 Hands Mill Highway, west of and with frontage on Hands Mill. The property is north of Paraham Road.

Also, York County sold property to QTS York II LLC on July 11. That land is connected to the 220 acres at 2107 Hands Mill. The 130-acre property at 5805 Campbell Road is west of Allison Creek Presbyterian Church. It sold for more than $4.3 million.

The Overland Park, Kansas address for both sites — 360 acres — matches the corporate headquarters for QTS Data Centers. According to the company website, QTS has more than 9 million square feet of mega scale data center space in North America and Europe.

York County has a potential $1 billion economic development deal, known as Project Cobra, on its table.

The county hasn’t identified the incoming company by name. Often before final county incentive approvals, contracts can dictate that the company won’t be named.

Last fall, the county had an offer to sell the 2157 Hands Mill Highway property to a then unnamed buyer in a deal listed as Project Cobra. The deal, county records show, was part of an economic development project.

Project Cobra didn’t appear in county documents again until this summer when the county began the approval process for a tax incentive agreement. Those June documents list Project Cobra as a data center coming from an out-of-state company. They don’t list the location for the project.

York County Council has approved two of three votes needed for the incentive deal negotiated with the unnamed company. A public hearing and one final reading are needed. Council’s next scheduled meeting, barring any special called one ahead of time, comes Aug. 21.

The most recent public documents on the project show an anticipated investment of $1 billion and a dozen new jobs. The company would be required to invest $900 million within eight years for the agreed upon tax incentives.

This story was originally published July 26, 2023, 12:06 PM.