Nic Sulsky: A Curling Phone Call and Brier Road Trip

Nic Sulsky, co-founder and CEO of The Curling Group, follows from a long line of (usually) men who have attempted to promote the Roaring Game and make it “bigger and better.”

Curling is believed to be over 500 years old and most early advocates came from the church. Their efforts appear to come from a sincere passion for a sport which, as Rev. John Ramsay put it, provides “a manly and animating exercise” that fosters “good temper and honest rivalry.”

(Ramsay may have been the first curling “promoter” with his 1811 essay An Account of the Game of Curling.)

Is it possible these curling clergy were hoping to boost the collection plate on Sundays? We will never know.

The last 50 years have seen many attempts to increase the sport’s fanbase with hopes of filling the cash register for the top players and whichever new curling messiah has been exalted to lead them into the future. There are several examples of players attempting to establish a curling tour, with Ed Lukowich perhaps being the first to make real progress and topple the initial domino on what would later become the Grand Slam of Curling series.

Examining the motives for these past elite players is unneeded. It’s reasonable to long for greater rewards in a niche amateur sport which requires a large time commitment to succeed but offers limited financial return. What is inherently more interesting is the rationale of the non-curling carnival barkers that have occasionally surged onto the scene.

“Wild” Bill Hunter is known for his hockey legacy, but he also organized the first carspiel in 1949. Fast forward to the mid-1990s and he convinced Telus to sponsor an event at the West Edmonton Mall. A few other “Hunter Spiels” followed before Bill’s death in 2002; legend has it there were financial difficulties during that time, and a wealthy benefactor may have come to his rescue.

The West Edmonton Mall bonspiel featured the first and only series of games for Curling International, believed to be the first attempt at a professional league. Merv Bodnarchuk imagined a league of teams that would identify with major markets across North America (winner Kerry Burtnyk skipped the “New York Nights”).

Like Bill, Merv had built a career from hockey promotion but also had a passion for curling. Unlike Bill, he also wanted to succeed as a player and hired his own teams of superstars. The most notable lineup, The Anaheim Earthquake, featured Merv at lead with his team of Lukowich, Pat Ryan and Randy Ferbey.

Bodnarchuk aspired to grow these franchises and eventually generate a profit from sale or licensing. He also is quoted, saying back in 1996, that “betting is something we want to bring into this (Curling International)”. There’s more to come from Merv Bodnarchuk on a future episode of the Curling Legends Podcast.

As the end of the century approached, another name entered the curling arena. Kevin Albrecht was the head of Global Business Development for IMG and after discussions with Kevin Martin (then head of the World Curling Players’ Association), purchased the World Curling Tour from Lukowich, Arnold Asham, Jim Furgale and Ray Turnbull.

International Management Group was founded by Mark McCormack in 1960. His first client was Arnold Palmer. By 2000, IMG became arguably the dominant global sports management firm with 70 offices in 35 countries, valued at over U.S. $1 billion in 2014.

This was new territory for curling. It was the first time a global corporation had stepped to the plate – or hack, to use a curling analogy.

The Albrecht era lasted over a decade, including Kevin’s move from IMG to Insight Sports in 2006 and creation of iSport in 2009. This period gave us the Grand Slams, the simultaneous Brier boycott, financial challenges and the eventual sale of the Slam series to Rogers Sportsnet in 2012.

When the Slams hit their Sweet 16 in 2017, World Curling announced the launch of a global series, The Curling World Cup, in conjunction with Chinese company Kingdomway Sports as the title sponsor. The series ran for just one season, 2018-19 and then folded – at a major loss – due to a payment dispute with the sponsor.

Money can inevitably prove tricky in the Roaring Game.

Curlers, discerning entrepreneurs, management behemoth IMG and even World Curling itself has struggled to make a substantial mark in the broader sports arena with curling. The Olympics remain the cornerstone for capturing new fans. The world championships appear to be doing… fine? The Brier and Scotties are consequential in Canada, a country that is ranked 37th in population. Looking back, it’s impressive the Grand Slams and its semblance of a tour have survived for nearly a quarter century, but will it continue?

Since learning of the purchase of the Grand Slams from Sportsnet by The Curling Group in 2024, my question has been “Can it work this time?”

I sat down with Nic Sulsky at the Co-op Tour Challenge to find out. This interview has been edited for length and clarity; the full discussion will be made available on an upcoming episode of the Rock Logic podcast.

Kevin Palmer (KP): Going back to an original question, at what point did The Curling Group come into your mind? I think it started in April of 2024?

Nic Sulsky (NS): There were two very pivotal moments in this. The first was late January in 2023. Kerri Einarson won her fourth Scotties in a row, and we were a partner; PointsBet was a sponsor of Kerri’s team, and she won the Scotties on a Sunday night. Monday morning she calls me, asking if PointsBet would be interested in sponsoring their team to go to the world championships.

I was like, what the f**k? It’s Monday morning, you’re the skip of the team; why are you calling me? You need money to go to the world championships? F*****g sport is broken.

And then I learned that the prize money in the world championships, regardless of the tens of millions of fans they get… you know how much money the world champion wins? Zero. They don’t win any money. So, I was like, this sport, they’re dying for a professional ecosystem. The fact is that this sport has been run by international not-for-profit sports organizations.

That moment with Kerri was kind of step one. I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time. It was like, okay, there’s opportunity here because like I love sport. And this was right around the time when a lot of these emerging leagues were starting to gain momentum – like f*****g pickleball and, you know, SailGP and all that. I was like, curling’s in the Olympics and its men and its women, and they’re just awesome people.

I’d become friends with John Morris, he had retired and we had sponsored Johnny Mo for a couple of years. We were going down to the Brier in London in 2023. He was coming to be a brand ambassador with us, and he flew in from Calgary.

Between Kerri and the Brier, it was in that period of time, that’s when I really was thinking about… opportunity, right? Would curlers ever play on teams that they don’t control? Would curlers be open to a professional ecosystem? All that kind of stuff.

I knew that I’d need to get buy-in from the curlers. That was the most – that’s the most important thing. Buy-in from the athletes is by far number one. You can go and raise f*****g money. I can go and convince media companies. No, you need buy-in from the athletes because you’re trying to change something that’s existed for decades and decades and decades. They’re used to playing for no money. Really, their main goal is an Olympic gold medal.

Johnny flew into Waterloo, and I picked him up on the way to London. He gets in the car, and I was like, Johnny… I got a question for you. I’ve been thinking about this – what do you think about a professional curling league? Do you think curlers would go for it? I kind of went through some of my ideas and he was like, yeah, I absolutely think they would.

Johnny is really smart and obviously one of the most successful curlers of all time, but he’s also one of the most beloved – not just from a fan perspective, but from the players. So as soon as Johnny said yes, and this would have been March of 2023, I was like, okay, there’s something really here.

KP: When you buy the Grand Slams, what do you actually get? What do you own?

NS: We bought the Grand Slam of Curling. Basically, it’s just like me buying a car, we bought the entire car.

KP: What if all of the players said: “Well, we’re not interested?”

NS: Well, no, because the players, let’s face it, the players need the f*****g Slams.

The thing is this is the spine of the sport, and I knew that. The very first thing that we did, before we even announced the acquisition from Sportsnet, was have a players-only meeting; this would have been April 2024 in Toronto during the Players’ (Championship). My co-founder and I, Mike Cotton, we introduced ourselves.

I had known a lot of the Canadian curlers because of PointsBet, being around the Brier and the Scotties. I didn’t know a lot of the international curlers, so it was my first opportunity for them to meet me and to hear me. And, it’s like, hey, we’re going to make changes.

Going back to that Brier in 2023, another massive moment of change. I was in a box at the Brier, and it was Johnny Mo, Donovan Bailey and myself. Donovan came to the Brier because he was also an ambassador for PointsBet and had never been to a curling event before. Johnny and Donovan are having this crazy great conversation where Johnny is explaining everything to Donovan and this 65-year-old woman turns around to go “shhh.”

I was like, what the f**k? This is a sporting event. These are two of the greatest athletes in the last 20 years in Canada having an exciting conversation about a sporting event. And you’re telling them to be quiet? I was like, change. Change is coming, right? And so that’s what excites me.

KP: You haven’t been shy about trying new things. Who is the (Slam) committee, and what is the input on those choices? It’s several things, not just rules on the ice or thinking time or game-related, it’s venue; which venues and how to change the venue experience?

NS: The competition committee is just the rules of the Slams. That’s Johnny, Jennifer Jones, Brent Laing and Pierre Charette. Kristi (Petrushchak) is on the committee as well. We also consult with the players’ council which is Matty (Matt Dunstone), Rachel (Homan), Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel, I think Alina (Pätz) is on the committee. I forget who else is on the committee.

As it relates to venues, that’s our operations team. Kristi is very involved in that. My co-founder, Mike Cotton, that’s his focus, looking at locations and venues, not just for GSOC but also now for Rock League, which is going to launch in the spring. That’s their priority.

Watch for Part 2 of this interview story – Curling’s Rock League “More Appealing to the Casual Sports Fan” – to be published soon