Curling-Sport's new professional league bets big on Olympic buzz

April 4 : Curling's first professional league is striking while the iron is hot, launching just over a month after the sport captivated audiences at the Winter Olympics.

Boasting an Olympic-heavy roster that includes several medallists from the Milano Cortina Games, the Rock League will feature six mixed-gender franchises competing across men's, women's, mixed team and mixed doubles events from April 6-12 in Toronto.

The league is operated by the Curling Group, a company which also owns the Grand Slam of Curling series and counts former Olympic curling champions and retired NFL Hall-of-Famer Jared Allen among its advisors.

"Curling is always among the most watched winter Olympic sports... it was incredible, it was super fun and electric," Curling Group CEO Nic Sulsky told Reuters. 

"We knew when we founded The Curling Group, that capitalizing on the Olympic momentum was going to be core to our business.

"The initial idea was, 'hey, maybe we'll wait until 2027 or 2028 to launch, because we're a startup that's been in existence for less than two years... But it was a must. We're having this conversation right now because everybody's been talking about curling."

'REFRAMING THE SPORT'

The condensed inaugural season of Rock League will offer up a taste of the format and rules, before the league returns in 2027 with five weeks of competition.

"The goal with Rock League is to reframe the sport, to showcase the incredible energy in curling events and the amazing personality that a lot of these curlers have," Sulsky said.

"From a business perspective, this is the first true professional ecosystem that the curlers have been able to participate in. We're creating a new format, we're creating a broadcast-friendly product where the games will