Curling’s Rock League “More Appealing to the Casual Sports Fan”

This is part two of my conversation with Nic Sulsky, the co-founder and CEO of The Curling Group. Part one can be viewed here.

Kevin Palmer (KP): What work have you done to this stage regarding international? One of the things we talked about was Sportsnet being very Canadian-focused. The opportunity that this product presented to you and this content was, “I’ve got the globe now.” Didn’t you have Japanese broadcasting?

Nic Sulsky (NS): Rock Channel is broadcasting all over the world. BBC is picking us up. We’re just English language, but it’s being picked up all over the world, which is great. People can watch it on rockchannel.com anywhere in the world.

I will say that, from a Rock League perspective, global distribution is very vital. We’re going to be announcing an American broadcaster, which is exciting (Editor’s note: FanDuel was announced as the new U.S. broadcast partner).

KP: What was the impetus of Rock League? Explain how that comes up because you’ve got the Slams… and are all of the players committed yet?

NS: Captains have been signed; we’ve sent out letters of interest to players who might be on rosters. We’re not going to be announcing the formal rosters of Rock League until after the Canadian Olympic Trials (Editor’s note: team names, branding and full rosters were announced on Dec. 16).

There’s going to be (another) big announcement, locations, dates for the first two years of Rock League.

KP: And the fact it’s an Olympic year, I imagine you wouldn’t want to wait another year to launch this.

NS: When we founded The Curling Group the plan initially was to launch Rock League in 2027, but we realized we have to leverage and harness the fact that curling is the most watched winter Olympic sport, right? The world is going to fall in love with curling like they always do every four years, and the problem is that every four years the world then forgets about curling… so we have to launch.

Yeah, it’s aggressive to launch Rock League this quickly and we’re making some strategic decisions to make sure that we launch it with the best foot forward. We have to create a great first impression for the casual sports fan that we can then lean into.

KP: Do you see the Slams and Rock League as having different market targets?

NS: To a certain degree I think Rock League is going to be more appealing to the casual sports fan, I’ll be honest.

The thing about Rock League is that it’s going to be the first mixed gender professional sports league. Each team is going to have five men and five women on the same team. They’re going to be playing together, which is exciting. As it relates to Rock League versus GSOC, (they’re) totally complimentary. I think the audiences will be similar, but I do believe that the casual sports fan is going to find it a little bit more exciting to get into Rock League.

There’s one reason why I think it’ll be easier for a casual sports fan is… “what the f**k is a Schwaller?” Marc Kennedy is one of the most successful curlers in the history of the game and an attractive, well-spoken, awesome human being. Marc Kennedy is the third for Team Jacobs. What the f**k is a Jacobs?

I haven't seen many team shirts, hats, jerseys… there’s not the typical sports fandom within this. So, I believe that it would be easier not only to sell the player but for the player to sell themselves if Marc Kennedy is the third of the… Oilers. The (Rock League) team is not going be the Oilers but, the Oilers, right?

We need the casual sports fan, when they turn on curling, regardless of not really being familiar with the rules, it’s… “what am I looking at?”

We have the branding. We’ve already built the teams, built the names, the logos.

KP: As much as you can share, from a player perspective, is there an equity opportunity? Brad Gushue, for example, is retiring and at his news conference he mentioned he had declined Rock League. What does it look like… or perhaps you can’t share much?

NS: I’m happy to share. Players are going to make real money, right? We’re going to put up a lot of prize money. We’re going to put up real money. Equity becomes complicated.

KP: The PGA Tour recently did that with the Strategic Sports Group; that’s why I wondered how it was structured.

NS: It’s absolutely a financial opportunity for the curlers, but we also want to build a star system.

The bigger the sport gets, the bigger the curlers get, the more sponsor opportunities they’re going to have to leverage their own personal brand outside of the sport and alongside the sport. I say this a lot, but a rising tide literally lifts all boats, it’s true. I think if we’re successful, there’s a lot of money to be made.

Will The Curling Group make a lot of money if we’re successful? Of course, but the investors that are supporting this business, that’s the whole point.

KP: You have a lot of people involved and I’d say one thing that is substantially different than every other attempt, historically, is the amount of people and the amount of broad investment. IMG wasn’t small potatoes, but it’s not clear they were fully engaged and again, it was very Canadian-centric at the time.

What’s the timeline? With any investment there’s usually a balance. There are people that have a love of the sport and are happy to invest but also, they want a return. What’s your window?

NS: It's a great question, but this is what we learned from other sports like SailGP, like Slap League, like NWSL (National Women’s Soccer league), MLS (Major League Soccer). At the end of the day, Rock League will be owned and operated. It’ll be a league owned and operated by TCG. We will own and operate all the franchises, all the events.

KP: With plans to potentially franchise, is that part of the plan?

NS: It will be within, I would say three years is the plan. Whether it’s two years, whether it’s four years, we’ll see. Within year three, which is what we’re hoping, is either we expand and there’ll be franchise fees, license fees that would be brought back into the corporation, which could be capital return for initial investors or just reinvestment into the business, or we will sell majority rights to the franchises, to ownership groups within the six regions (where) we’re launching the teams.

I think SailGP took six or seven years to get there. I think curling, we’re going to be able to get there quicker, primarily because we already have a true global sport that’s played by hundreds of millions of people around the world. And we are already in the Olympics and it’s more, I think (curling is) more common. There are more recreational curlers out there than high profile, expensive catamaran sailors.

Watch for Part 3 of this interview story – Rock Channel, World Curling, Gambling and Final Thoughts – to be published soon