TCG to Launch Curling’s First Pro League

Posted on: April 25, 2025, 03:43h. 

Last updated on: April 25, 2025, 03:45h.

Mark Keast Read More

Expertise: Canadian Gaming, iGaming, Las Vegas, Sports Betting, NFL, Boxing, UFC.

• Sports betting synergies in curling’s first pro league
• TCG launches league with six franchises
• Play to begin in April 2026, in Canada, U.S. and Europe

If there’s one thing Nic Sulsky knows, as he continues to build The Curling Group (TCG), as its Co-Founder and CEO, it’s the potential impact that sports betting can have on the growth of curling both in Canada and internationally.

Mixed-Gender Global Franchises

Sulsky is the former Chief Commercial Officer of PointsBet Canada, who helped steer that company into Ontario’s regulated igaming market after it went live in April 2022.

He left that post in April 2024 to take on the role at TCG, owners of the Grand Slam of Curling (GSOC), an elite series of men’s and women’s curling events featuring the best teams from around the world.

Yesterday TCG announced the launch of Rock League, the world’s first professional curling league, which will feature six top mixed-gendered global franchises, set to hit the ice in April 2026.

The multiformat six-week season will kick off right after the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic Games and 2026 curling world championship. Each week of competition will take place in different locations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

First Curling Pro League

The six franchises, each with five men and five women, will be organized by region, including two from Canada, two from Europe, one from the U.S. and one from the Asia-Pacific region.

Captains were announced yesterday too: Rachel Homan (Canada), Bruce Mouat (Scotland), Brad Jacobs (Canada), Alina Paetz (Switzerland), Chinami Yoshida (Japan) and Korey Dropkin (USA).

There will be plenty of details lie locations, dates, formats, team names, broadcast details to follow, obviously, with additional participants to be announced this fall. 

Casino.org reached out to Sulsky for his thoughts around how much sports betting will be intertwined in all of it. The nuances and strategies of sport seemingly lend themselves to betting on the sport, but curling markets are few and far between.

Six Week Season 

Sulsky expects that to change, opening up new worlds of engagement for curling fans, aided in part by a deal announced last year between TCG and ALT Sports Data, the San Diego-based leader in trading and consumer data company, to provide TCG with data for sports betting worldwide.

Rock League is going to be another spring board to use that data. 

One of the exciting things about the evolution of curling as a whole is the upcoming introduction of actual live betting,” Sulsky told Casino.org. “Up until now, the only betting on curling that was available to gamblers was manually traded pre-match core markets offered by a handful of operators. 

Live Betting on Curling on the Way

“No live betting has existed in curling due to a lack of legitimate live data collection protocols or, potentially more importantly, live projections models for operators to manage liability in real-time. One of the first things we did after acquiring the Grand Slam of Curling last summer was to engage with Alt Sports Data to build both for the sport of curling for the first time.”

TSG will launch actual live betting for curling to coincide with the beginning of the next GSOC season. 

“And then, in Spring 2026 with the launch of Rock League, we will enhance the offering to provide shot by shot markets and potentially even player prop markets,” he said. “Curling is going to become extra beloved by punters because many curling events/games happen when there is a lack of other live sports to bet on. And, if there’s one thing I’ve learned through my 12+ years as a gaming operator is that gamblers love one thing the most …. gambling.”