Stadium Sports at all U.S. championships
U.S. curling fans who want curling on their television sets are getting their wish.
The upcoming Mixed Doubles Olympic Trials at Rock Creek Curling in Lafayette, Colo. will be shown on two NBC platforms.
The MD Olympic Trials begin on Monday, Feb. 17 and wrap up on Sunday, Feb. 23.
The pool play games, tiebreakers, and page playoff will be streamed on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, while the semifinals and finals will be broadcast on Peacock and one of NBC’s cable channels, CNBC.
All five games per draw will be available on Peacock, with Stadium Sports (SSN), formerly known as Curling Stadium, providing production.
Stadium Sports will also stream all games from the 2025 U.S. national fours championships that begin next week—Jan. 27—from Duluth, Minn. as well as April’s national juniors at Bowling Green, Ohio.
In Duluth, 2018 Olympic champion Tyler George returns as analyst along with three-time national champ Alex Carlson. Joining them in the booth will be 2009 world junior champion Matt Perushek.
The Peacock-only Trials coverage will run from Monday-Friday, with the semifinals and finals starting on Saturday, Feb. 22. Especially notable in NBC’s planned coverage is their willingness to commit to televising a best-of-three finals series.
Once the field has been whittled down to two teams, they will face off for game one on Saturday evening at 9:00 p.m. (all times ET) with game two following on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Should a game three be necessary, it will also be broadcast on CNBC at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday night.
NBC host Jason Knapp and Canada’s Olympic and world champion skip Kevin Martin will be teaming up to provide commentary for the semifinal and finals, while Kira Dixon will serve as the reporter.
Knapp is no stranger to providing play-by–play commentary, having commentated at previous Olympics as well as for NBC’s now-abandoned Curling Night in America.
Dixon, a former Miss America, commentates on NBC golf, swimming and other sport coverage.
Although USA Curling has been streaming their national championships on YouTube in recent years, there were questions about how the Trials would be shown, as NBC owns all U.S. Olympic broadcast rights.
Two years ago, NBC seemed to abandon curling entirely. The decision came just days after ESPN also left the sport, leaving U.S. curling fans feeling left out in the cold.
Previously, there was outrage from U.S. fans regarding NBC decisions to insert commercials over live play at the 2021 Trials and 2022 Olympics. Even earlier, The Curling News had accused the network of failing to deliver consistent curling narratives to sports fans.
Regardless of previous beefs, this announcement should be welcome news for American curling fans, and a similar approach for November’s team (fours) Olympic Trials at Sioux Falls, SD should be expected.
Hopefully these Olympic Trials serve as yet another reminder to the sports entertainment industry: If you broadcast it, we will watch.