How a northern Ontario developer pivoted to running 4 local sports franchises

When Dario Zulich bought the Sudbury Wolves hockey team in 2016, he said his goal was to get a new arena built.

As a developer, Zulich said he was more interested in landing the contract to build, and later manage, a new arena in Sudbury than running the day-to-day operations of an Ontario Hockey League team.

"I thought it would be a really good business model if I was integrated all the way through from the landowner, developer, to the constructor, to the manager of the building," he said.

Zulich now admits he knew nothing about running a hockey team at the time.

"I remember my lawyer giving me the set of keys and, and he said I turned pale," he said.

"I was a little nervous, but, you know…And you just gotta jump in with two feet. Then just learn it."

He never got to build that arena.

In July 2022 Sudbury city council voted to reject a planned arena and event centre at Zulich's proposed Kingsway Entertainment District because of the $215-million price tag attached to the project.

It had more than doubled from a $100-million estimate when the project was first proposed in 2017.

"I think there was clearly a consensus on council that we're not willing to take on new additional debt. The price tag of roughly $215 million, that was provided as an estimate, was just too much," then Mayor Brian Bigger said at the time.

The city has since pivoted to plans for a downtown arena and event centre to replace the Sudbury Community Arena, which was built in 1951.

Zulich has also pivoted.

He said the land he purchased on the Kingsway will become an industrial park instead.

But his focus has also shifted in the nine years since he bought the Sudbury Wolves.

"I've jumped in with two feet taking over the management of SWSE. My 100 per cent focus is to manage these teams," he said.

SWSE stands for Sudbury Wolves Sports and Entertainment.

A year after he purchased the Wolves Zulich bought the Sudbury Spartans amateur football team.

In 2018 he brought professional basketball to Sudbury with the creation of the Sudbury Five, who play in the Basketball Super League.

And in 2023 he revived the Sudbury Cyclones semi-professional soccer team, which is part of League1 Ontario.

A sports franchise model

Zulich said he's modelled SWSE after Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, the Toronto-based professional sports and real estate company which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Raptors, Argonauts and Toronto FC, among others.

"It's just a different scale," he said, referring to his company.

"In a city like Toronto you get north of 20,000 people. We're gonna get you know, 1,000. I think we're gonna get up to 4,000 with the right venue."

No matter the sport, he said the business model for each team is similar.

"With any sports business, you sell tickets and then you're going to sell advertising," Zulich said.

"If you have people at the event, you might as well give them a hot dog and a Coke. And after that you might as well sell them a hat and a T-shirt."

More recently, Zulich said he's become more hands-on with his teams, sitting in on draft meetings, for example.

While he got his start in business as a developer, he said managing sports teams is now his full-time job.

"I want to bring Sudbury some championships," he said.

"I don't know if I can or not, but I'm going to try as hard as I can. I'm 100 per cent focused on doing that."