01:33:52 · John Coogan, Jared Allen, Jordi Hays
[01:33:52] S0: Mhmm. [01:33:53] S1: Or, you know, you look at Rock League. So for example, we we paired, you know, Jacobs from team Canada was paired against one of the... Or, yeah, Swiss players in the very first Rock League match ever, and those dudes dang near went to fist to cuffs in the in the locker room during the Olympics, right, when things were getting heated. Yeah. You gotta have those moments. Right? You gotta have those rivalries in the sports. You gotta have those personalities that clash because that's what make competitive sports fun is when you got, you know, when you got... It's like two, know, two magnets pushing against each other. Right? [01:34:22] S2: Has there been a like a doping scandal at any point in Curling's history? Or is that... No. [01:34:27] S1: I mean, might be... There... If they tested some if they tested some of these guys back in the day for drinking beforehand, [01:34:32] S0: that might be... That might [01:34:34] S1: have been the whole scandal. Scam. What about Some people are pretty wholesome. [01:34:37] S0: What about the fan experience? You've mentioned being a fan, having a couple drinks. Is hackling approved? Is it that in poor taste? How how far could you go? You're you're you're good to have some hackling on the from the stands? [01:34:49] S1: Yeah. There's... I I I welcome all of it. There's be more of [01:34:52] S0: it. Okay.
01:34:52 · John Coogan, Jared Allen, Jordi Hays
[01:34:52] S0: it. Okay. [01:34:53] S1: And and problem is like we had a guy in in, I think it was like... Nowadays people on social media get paid to heckle people. Right? I mean, it's like they just it's... You know? Yeah. So I I think I think you need more authentic heckling. Yeah. Not people out there for clicks. Sure. And and that really happens when you start building up fandom. That's the cool part about having teams. Right? When you have teams, you build up fandoms. You build up rivalry. Storyline. Absolutely. There needs to be more heckling on the ice. People need to let you know when you're great, and they need to let you know when you suck. That's what's fun about sports. [01:35:20] S0: Yeah. Imagine if we could [01:35:21] S1: do that in business. Imagine if you... If your CEO made a really bad call, you could walk in and be like, you suck [01:35:26] S0: today. No. No. [01:35:28] S2: No. No. [01:35:28] S0: That happens. Happens a lot. That [01:35:31] S2: happens. You should see our team after the show. They go pretty hard on us sometimes. [01:35:35] S0: Yeah. Sorry. You you had something to say, David?
01:35:35 · John Coogan, David Rader
[01:35:35] S0: Yeah. Sorry. You you had something to say, David? [01:35:38] S6: Yeah. Yeah. I was just gonna point it to to some some similar sports. Like, if you look at, the waste management open and Yeah. Kind of notoriously in in golf. It's the same kind of sport, right, where, you know, you're trying to concentrate and all that. But but the fans are having a good time and they may... They... They'll they'll let you have it if if you're not. And it's such a good sport where, you know, you can be mic'd up and you can have... You can get to know these athletes as they're doing it. And that's how you build them into stars and you build through the league. And again, look, we're going be on TV. Three hundred hours is a ton, and that's on CBC in Canada and it's on ESPN plus and some coverage on ESPN in The US. You're just naturally... You're gonna get to know these people. It's it's more hours than than than almost any other sport is is on television, and they're mic'd up. They're they're doing things. We're pushing it on social. Like I said, that social engagement is just off the charts in terms of the growth and the interest from fans. So you're going to see a lot of these athletes starting to become bigger stars, and you're going to see them being built up by their sponsors, by the league, by the sheer amount of content [01:36:44] S0: Yeah. [01:36:44] S6: That's out there. And so you you have some of that, and you have the the opportunity to kind of turn them into into household names, at least at least amongst the the the right fan groups.
01:36:44 · David Rader, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[01:36:44] S6: That's out there. And so you you have some of that, and you have the the opportunity to kind of turn them into into household names, at least at least amongst the the the right fan groups. [01:36:55] S0: What's been the the the Curling Group strategy on prediction markets? Last year, it felt like every league was picking aside Polymarket, Kalshi. Have you have you consult... Have you figured out a strategy? Do you wanna go all in with one, be diversified? How how do you think about maximizing the potential of the league there? [01:37:16] S6: Yeah. I think it's I think it's a, you know, a little bit of everything kind of a kind of an approach. I think we want to be open and and have those conversations with with all of them. I think the the interest there, it's a great sport for for for for betting markets and for people who are interested. Our... I wanna be clear. Our... We didn't underwrite this deal as a... You know, for the betting side. It's something that we we think there's an opportunity on. Yeah. [01:37:42] S0: It's more incremental to revenue overall in the long [01:37:44] S6: term. Yeah. [01:37:45] S0: It does feel like there's, like, a fever pitch last year of, like, every league's gotta pay up for whatever. Then we will... A... We we will enter, a more stable equilibrium with that as a revenue... What [01:37:55] S2: what is what... What's the what's the bottlenecks to growth in The US? I I wouldn't know where to go. I don't have a place that... Like, I'm coming out of this interview. I'm fiending to get my hands on a rock.
01:37:55 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan
[01:37:55] S2: what is what... What's the what's the bottlenecks to growth in The US? I I wouldn't know where to go. I don't have a place that... Like, I'm coming out of this interview. I'm fiending to get my hands on a rock. [01:38:05] S0: Stable center can do... Or or crypto arena, sorry, Does Ice Cockets [01:38:10] S2: do you need to make sure that like on on for the for The US side and growth here, like do you need a... Or is there a pathway to making sure there's like a curling center within every major metro area or at least promising areas?
01:38:26 · David Rader
[01:38:26] S6: Yeah. So I think there's a few answers to that. One is participation is definitely key and helpful. And I think that curling in general is growing in terms of in certain markets. It tends to be in the Midwest. It tends to be in Northern markets where, you know, it's obviously cheaper and easier to have So there's some of that. I think it's also bringing events to The U. S. And showing how fun it can be to go to this. So we've got events in Rock League coming up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and in Utica, New York to start the season. And so you're going get people and people are going to go and I think they're going to go and they're going to have a blast and they're going to start to love it. We love the way the way the Curling League is is the Curling Group, sorry, is taking Rock League out to different markets on a, you know, there are smaller markets that don't necessarily have the, you know, where you're not in as much competition for attention. So you go to these markets and they're doing it in Canada and we'll do it in The US as well. And it's like, hey, this is freaking cool. Look at what The Curling Group is doing. And it's look what we can go do and have a really fun time. And it's the only show in town. So you're going to get some grassroots excitement through that. You're going to build it up through that. You're going to see the social media, I think, continue to take off and have more of an impact on that. And I think that's going to unlock a lot of the growth in The US. I think the growth in Canada is going to be... It's enough to support the investment to begin with.