Rock Channel, World Curling and Gambling

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

Kevin Palmer (KP): How did PointsBet get involved with curling?

Nic Sulsky (NS): PointsBet was an Australian publicly traded company, it launched in the U.S., and it started gaining some notoriety and (had) a big media deal with NBC. But in launching PointsBet in Ontario, I knew it was going to be one of the most competitive gaming jurisdictions on planet Earth.

The challenge that PointsBet had was (first) we didn’t have any brand recognition, really. We didn’t have a database. We had to build a brand, build awareness and consideration, which are vital for any brand as they’re trying to launch. But then gaming is also kind of unique, because you also have to create a level of trust and integrity amongst consumers.

There were hundreds of hours of curling on television. Candidly, curling is not as expensive as a lot of the other sports. And there’s something about the initial brand plan that we conceived of at PointsBet was trying to create something that was authentically Canadian.

KP: Are you going to start tracking shots because you have cameras now on every sheet?

NS: So, the answer is yes, we’re in conversations with two groups. One, an AI-focused group that has built a curling prototype and then there’s a massive global sports technology company that I’ve been in conversations with over the last few months that would revolutionize the way we’re thinking about not just rock tracking, but hogline tracking and measuring, and all of it right now. We’re still in the early days of those conversations but they’re going really well.

KP: Where do see the value in the data, then? I expect gambling is number one?

NS: I think that’s the biggest one. No operator is going to offer live betting until they have honest projections, algorithms and live trading liability management.

KP: Also, there’s a fan experience.

NS: Sports fans are now getting used to and getting excited about way deeper data tracking and analytics – shot tracker, baseball, pitch tracking, all of that stuff.

KP: This sport is quite behind because… but it’s made for it… it’s also quite behind because...

NS: Because we don’t have any money. No, no one’s ever had money. Candidly, we’re the first group that’s ever actually started to really invest real money. I had a call (recently) with World Curling and Curling Canada because we – I don’t know if you saw, on BBC a couple days ago, they had an article by Colin Grahamslaw, who’s the (World Curling) head of operations.

KP: I was going to ask you about that article because it was unclear what it was about. I think with Rock Channel you’re working with Scottish Curling? What’s the World Curling connection then?

NS: What’s really exciting for us is a lot of times when new emerging pro leagues are starting to build, there’s friction between the world governing body and the business people.

KP: You even applied to be on the (World Curling) board.

NS: I did, that was before I actually understood how World… I applied to be on the board of directors because I was like, might as well. I had no idea. I went to the World Curling Congress last September and within about a day and a half I was like, oh yeah, this is not meant for me.

World Curling is a traditional governing body, right? They are traditionalists and that’s fine. What I appreciate about Colin and World Curling and (president) Beau Welling, we have a good relationship. Colin called me a disruptor, (and) we are a disruptor, but we are all in this together because at the end of the day… if we succeed to grow the sport, to bring more eyeballs to the sport, to bring more sponsor revenue into the sport, to create a star system of these athletes and more money where these athletes can actually feel like professional athletes, there will be a trickle-down positive impact on everything.

KP: I guess the question is, is there any other relationship with World Curling?

NS: No, not yet. We’re just very close. We’re very close. We’re working on a calendar together. I’m very bullish so far on how Rock Channel has started to unfold. We have our OTT platform and have a Fast Channel. Fast Channel is on Roku, on Pluto (TV), it’s going to start being picked up across the world.

KP: So, you’re happy with where Rock Channel’s at right now? And then where does it go?

NS: You know, there’s a lot of need for distribution platforms for content, not just from a curling perspective. Obviously that’s our focus, but I think there’s potentially a play in Rock Channel for other sports.

If you look at a lot of the other emerging leagues that are out there, leagues are five, six, seven years ahead of us… they’re only now getting to some of the infrastructure pieces that we’re building. We’re seeing decisions that leagues are making four, five, six years into their trajectory, and then they’re investing in the infrastructure.

We’re like… let’s just invest, let’s just do it now.

KP: What's Sportsnet’s involvement going forward? When does their contract end?

NS: They have linear rights in Canada. Yeah, it ends at some point, but not for a while. We’re not looking elsewhere; GSOC is going to be on Sportsnet for the foreseeable future. Linear-wise, from a digital perspective, we own all rights. The games in Canada, the games that aren’t featured on Sportsnet are available for everybody on Rock Channel. We won’t put them on another broadcaster.

KP: How do you monetize the gambling aspect of a sport?

NS: It’s not just the gambling. You can monetize it through creating official rights deals with books where they can be an official sports betting operator of Rock League. Look at the NFL, NBA, NHL, there are a number of brands who are the official sports betting company. With that, those sports books will pay a rights fee to the leagues to get the use to their official marks and logos.

Team Schwaller doesn’t have a team logo. Rock League teams are going to have logos. If you go to a sports betting app, some apps, you’re going to see logos.

KP: Is there a rock app, a rock gambling app? Does TCG become an operator?

NS: No, no, no, we’re not an operator. We’re not a gambling operator.

KP: But those gambling operators have to take enough interest in your sport to create the lines. That’s where you go back to your data point, you feed that to them because they’re going to say, “We’ll offer this” but they don’t understand curling.

NS: They don’t know how to trade curling. That’s why ALT Sports Data, they have live traders. They live trade and there’s two ways that a sports betting operator can work with us and ALT. They can get access to a portal where the operator can manually trade it on their own. ALT will update things in real time and then an operator can pick and choose what markets they want to put up. Or, the operator can build a direct integration into the ALT API and then all of those markets are traded in real time by ALT and then there’s an NGR rev share base between ALT and the operator.

But from a TCG perspective, we will, when there’s scale, right? At the end of the day, you got to prove there’s value until someone’s willing to pay for it, right? While we are building, or until we get to a point where we can start charging a decent amount for the official rights and marks of the league, well, that’s where we'll get to.

KP: You started with an initial $5 million, is there a second round of funding? What has that funding been going into?

NS: Yes. The money is going towards building. The data, streaming, the app, we pay for events… it’s general operations but primarily growth.

Following the news from the recent NBA gambling scandal, I emailed Nic and asked him one further question:

KP: Regarding the recent news of the gambling scandal in the NBA, is there anything The Curling Group is doing or preparing to do for these types of potential issues?

NS: In preparation for a growth in curling betting, TCG is doing a number of things:

• We have invested in a proper OFFICIAL live data collection platform (powered by ALT Sports Data).

• We have executed a TCG Integrity Policy that all curlers have received. Any player that violates the policy will encounter strict and immediate penalties.

• We have partnered with SportRadar to provide integrity monitoring services, which will identify any betting inconsistencies across regulated sportsbooks.

Supporting legal, licensed and regulated sports betting along with gaming education is the best way to make sure gambling issues withing a sport are avoided.

Gambling exists in every sport. What we would like to see is the growth of legal, regulated and licensed operators providing markets, so sports fans don’t need to seek out unregulated places to gamble on curling.

Final Thoughts

Looking back at the history of previous attempts to grow curling’s financial pie, I asked the question: “Can it work this time?”

The market conditions have clearly changed. The sport has greater international appeal. There is also investment, coming from legitimate sources and who – in the case of TCG backers like former NFLers Jared Allen and Marc Bulger – appear to have a passion for the sport and may be willing to wait before they see a return.

Sulsky is a passionate entrepreneur with a track record of success in the online gaming industry. I can quibble with some of the numbers Nic shared; it’s not clear there are tens of millions of fans, much less hundreds of millions who play the sport, but perhaps hyperbole is a prerequisite for his position.

Curling was invented in Scotland and incubated in Canada – around 47 million people combined – so there is room for growth.

If Sulsky and TCG can keep the ship afloat (rising tides); if the investors are committed, have patience, and reasonable expectation on returns, in the words of Lloyd Christmas, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”