In the Carroll County Area Technology Center business classroom, entrepreneurship is more than a lesson, it’s a hands-on experience.
Students in Dr. Tim Burgoyne’s Introduction to Business and Marketing class recently created Ball Park Battles, a fully developed board game that may one day hit the market. The project is entirely student-led and follows a structured process that mirrors real-world product development.
Each student begins the semester by designing and pitching an original board game. After multiple rounds of presentations and eliminations, the class narrows the field to four finalists. From there, the final decision belongs to the students.
“I had no say in it,” Dr. Burgoyne said. “They voted on what they thought was the most fun.”
This year’s winning concept, created by Liam Taylor (Trimble County), Jordan Vincent (Henry County), Quinton Hall (Carroll County) and Kaylee Enos (Trimble County), centers on baseball strategy. All four students are athletes, and they leaned into something they were passionate about.
“We were trying to figure out something we were passionate about, and we came up with baseball,” Liam said. “It was just a good idea, and everybody else helped us improve it.”
The game captures baseball in its simplest form. Players draft five athletes while staying under an $80 million salary cap, adding strategy and math to gameplay. Offense and defense secretly choose numbers to determine outs and hits, creating close, realistic, low-scoring games that last 30 minutes to an hour.
“Trying to predict the other person’s number made it interesting,” Liam said.
Quinton helped develop the probability-based defensive system that divides the board into quadrants. “We thought of a good way to make it interesting,” he said. “If the offense and defense flip the same number, you’re out. It makes you think every time.”
Students say the competitive nature of the game is part of what makes it appealing.
“It feels like real baseball,” Liam said. “It’s usually low scoring, like 2-1, and that makes it more intense.”
Kaylee said the game changed significantly from its original version. “The board is pretty much the same, but everything else pretty much changed,” she said. “We kept making it better.”
Once selected, the entire class worked together to refine the product by designing the cards, board, box and player pieces. The most challenging task was writing clear directions.
“You had to get every detail and make it understandable,” Liam said. “There were a lot of ups and downs, and we had to change a lot of things.”
After multiple playtests, students identified small gaps and revised the game, learning an important lesson in entrepreneurship.
“You have to be willing to destroy a draft to make it the final product,” Dr. Burgoyne said.
Students are now exploring production and pricing strategies. The current version costs about $85 to produce, so they are working to streamline materials, reduce box size and move directions to a QR code with a goal of lowering the price to around $40. A pre-order campaign may help launch the game this spring.
Beyond business skills, the project strengthened teamwork among students from different counties who didn’t previously know one another.
“None of us really knew each other at the beginning,” Kaylee said. “It was a good way to bring the class together.”
Ball Park Battles is more than a class assignment for these aspiring entrepreneurs. It’s proof that collaboration, creativity and perseverance can turn an idea into a tangible product and potentially a real business opportunity.