Ancient Gladiators.
Modern Stars.
Two athletes. One ring. Centuries of discipline behind them.
The Sport.
The bow. The crouch. The moment the arena goes quiet.
Then the thunderous explosion. Two athletes collide with everything they have. The arena erupts.
SCL is the professional sumo touring league outside Japan. The sport is more than 2,000 years old, and it’s coming to arenas across the U.S. and beyond — with larger-than-life athletes who’ve built their lives around it. Each SCL event is its own tournament and have its own prize money.
Sumo’s reach is already global: amateur sumo runs in 85-plus countries, with 35-plus clubs across the U.S.
Professional sumo.
Nothing else like it.
What We’re Building.
Sumo Championship League will elevate sumo into a global professional, modern sport honoring its heritage and empowering powerful athletes through strong competition. We will engage audiences of all ages worldwide through real sport and authentic drama. Thrilling live events and media will drive fan engagement and revenue streams.
Sport-first. Story-driven. Global.
The drama comes from the bouts — the rivalries, the upsets, the careers that climb the rankings and the careers that don’t, the moment the unranked challenger throws the favorite and the arena rises. Live events carry the experience; media will carry the season-long story they are part of.
The touring league is the launch, not the limit. SCL is built as a media-and-sports property that grows across live events, broadcast and streaming, sponsorship, media rights, merchandise, and licensing — with the long-term aim of establishing professional sumo as a sustainable global sports-and-entertainment property.
How an SCL Event Works.
Each SCL event is its own tournament. Every wrestler in the field competes against every other wrestler once in an opening round robin; the top finishers advance to a second round, and the leaders from there reach a championship bracket fought best-of-three. The night closes on a championship bout.
Results carry across the season. Every event updates a season-long ranking — SCL’s Sumo Power Rankings, in the banzuke tradition — published after each event. Those standings decide seeding and determine which wrestlers qualify for the SCL Annual Championship, the premier event of the year. The Annual Champion receives the SCL Championship Belt and the rank of Grand Champion (yokozuna).
The Team.
Stuart Snyder
Co-founder & Chairman/CEO
Most recently, Stuart Snyder served as President and COO of Turner Broadcasting’s Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media division, leading Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and Boomerang to a billion dollars in annual revenue and twenty-six Emmy Awards. Prior to that, he led two of the largest live touring companies in the world as President and COO of both World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and Feld Entertainment — known for the touring operations of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, Disney on Ice, and Siegfried & Roy’s iconic Las Vegas show. At WWE, Snyder spearheaded the acquisition of WCW from Turner Broadcasting to bring the brand and its valuable video library into the company. Through these positions, Snyder was responsible for the production, promotion, and operation of thousands of live events.
Before that, he served as President and COO of CINAR Corporation, leading the public company through a sales transaction that increased shareholder value by 90%. He also served on the board of WOW Unlimited, a publicly traded company, and helped lead the company through a successful sales process. Earlier in his career, he grew Turner Home Entertainment and LIVE Home Video, each into $500 million grossing businesses.
His career has touched every revenue and profit center of live entertainment, media, consumer products, and family entertainment. That is the combination SCL is built on.
Snyder earned a Bachelor of Science in Management from Binghamton University.
Toper Taylor
Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer
Toper Taylor is a multiple Emmy Award–winning producer, former William Morris Agency talent agent, and veteran media executive whose career spans more than two decades at the intersection of entertainment, technology, and global cultural storytelling. As co-founder of the Sumo Championship League, Taylor brings a rare blend of creative vision, operational discipline, and brand-building expertise to the launch of the first fully funded professional sumo league outside Japan.
Taylor has produced or overseen more than 15,000 episodes of television and over $3 billion in content, shaping some of the most influential franchises in family and youth entertainment. His President & COO roles at Nelvana, Cookie Jar Entertainment (now WildBrain), and Network of One/Spotter helped redefine global IP development, creator-driven monetization, and digital-first storytelling. He is widely recognized for scaling organizations, elevating talent, and architecting brands that resonate across cultures and generations.
A proud three-time graduate of the University of Southern California, Taylor holds degrees in public policy, healthcare administration, and marketing and public relations. He also serves on the Board of Councilors for the USC Roski School of Art and Design, supporting the next generation of creative leaders and visual storytellers.
A Japanese Sport. A Western League.
Sumo’s origin is in Japan.
It is centuries old. The ring, the ceremony, the ranking system, the language the sport uses for itself — the dohyo, the mawashi, the shikona, the gyoji, the basho — all of it comes from a tradition that lives in Japan and is held there. Grand Sumo is where that tradition lives at the elite level. SCL is not a branch of it, an offshoot of it, or an American translation of it. What we are doing is building on the strong tradition and creating a new chapter in the world of sumo.
The sport has also been carried in this country for a long time. Japanese-American families have watched Grand Sumo through international broadcaster NHK across generations. USA Sumo, USSF, and the regional clubs have built and sustained the competitive amateur sport for decades. American athletes have competed in international competition under the International Sumo Federation.
The cultural institutions that program Cherry Blossom festivals, Obon, Japan Day, and the rest of the year’s cultural calendar have honored the sport alongside everything else they hold. We didn’t bring sumo to America. The people above did, long before us.
SCL will use the rules the sport has always used. The athletes we sign bring their own histories and their own preparation to the ring. SCL is a hybrid of tradition and modern — with its own integrity.
Discover Professional Sumo.
What is sumo?
A wrestling sport from Japan. Two athletes face each other in a ring. The first one to step out, or to touch the floor with anything except the soles of his feet, loses. Most bouts are over in seconds. The sport has been competed for centuries, with a ceremony and a ranking system that shape an athlete’s career from the first day he steps onto the clay.
What is the Sumo Championship League?
A professional sumo league touring arenas across America. The full sport, with the ranking system and the discipline behind every bout, performed by professional athletes for audiences in cities across the country.
Is SCL affiliated with the Japan Sumo Association or Grand Sumo?
SCL is not affiliated with the Japan Sumo Association or Grand Sumo. SCL is its own professional league, with its own authority and its own audience, operating alongside Grand Sumo rather than under it. We honor the tradition the sport rests on.
What's SCL's relationship to USA Sumo and the amateur sport?
USA Sumo, the United States Sumo Federation, the regional amateur clubs, and IFS-affiliated competition have built and sustained the sport in America for decades. SCL operates at the professional touring level alongside the amateur sport. The two levels share the sport and coordinate on specific operational decisions; each has its own athletes, its own competitions, and its own reason for existing.
How does a sumo bout work?
The wrestlers square off across the ring — a ritual of preparation that takes longer than the bout itself. They study each other, they ready themselves, they crouch at the line. Then the charge: both wrestlers driving into each other with everything they have. From there it is grappling, leverage, balance, footwork — the techniques the sport has refined over centuries. The wrestler who pushes his opponent out of the ring, or makes him touch down with anything except the soles of his feet, wins. The referee calls the winning technique by name.
Can I compete?
If you have the size, strength, and conditioning to compete at the professional level, we’re recruiting. Season One is a men’s division, eighteen and over, competing across North America and Europe. The Athletes page has the criteria and the form.
How can I partner with or sponsor SCL?
The Partners page is the place to start.
When and where are events?
Season One is in development. Sign up above and we’ll tell you when SCL is coming to your city.
Key Sumo Terms
A quick reference for the words SCL uses — and that sports writers will encounter covering the league.
Dohyo — The ring. A circular clay platform, 15 feet in diameter, where all bouts take place.
Mawashi — The belt. The competition garment worn by wrestlers — the only thing they wear in the ring.
Rikishi — A sumo wrestler. The professional athletes who compete in the sport.
Tachiai — The charge. The explosive opening moment when both wrestlers drive into each other to begin the bout.
Gyoji — The referee. Dressed in traditional robes, the gyoji calls the bout and announces the winning technique.
Shikona — A wrestler’s ring name — earned, not given. The name they compete under throughout their career.
Kimarite — The winning technique. Sumo recognizes 82 official techniques; the gyoji calls the kimarite that ended the bout.
Basho — A tournament. The competitive event structure in which wrestlers compete across a set number of bouts.
Banzuke — The official ranking document. Published before each tournament, it lists every wrestler’s rank and standing.