‘Job ain’t done’: What’s next for curling's Rock League after successful preview season?

For seven days, Nic Sulsky roamed Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre.

He shook plenty of hands while entertaining friends, family, potential investors and curlers alike throughout the inaugural go-round at Rock League, billed as a preview season for the first-ever professional curling venture.

Speaking to CBC Sports on Friday, Sulsky, who is CEO The Curling Group, which runs Rock League, said he was looking forward to Sunday around 6:05 p.m. ET, when the trophy would be handed out and the week would be concluded.

But come Monday morning — perhaps after a cup of coffee or two — it would be right back to work.

“The big success is actually showing people,” Sulsky said. “People love the story, love the idea, love the talk, but a lot of people wanted to see it. Well, wake up Monday morning and we get to engage with the folks that we've been in conversations with and get this thing across the finish line, right? Like, job ain't done.”

While the week was historic in its own right — it’s not often you get to see Canadian legends in Brad Jacobs and Rachel Homan face each other in fours — the greater success indicator, from a macro level, was whether it would show enough potential to garner the fan and financial interest necessary to sustain itself.

Sulsky said as much, while noting that he did not spend a single dollar on marketing.

“People ask me, what's the metric, what's the [key performance indicator] that you are most focused on? I believe there's only one KPI that any CEO and, candidly, any employee of a private company has to say, or even a public company. It's shareholder value,” he said.

Rock League will return next year for a lengthened Season 2, with four weeks of regular season from Jan. 7 through Feb. 7 including