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[PBR World Finals 2015]

Along for the ride: As PBR rose to fame, Vegas proved a strategic partner

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Kasey Hayes attempts to ride Jeremiah, one of seven animal athletes in the running for World Champion Bull at the PBR’s 2015 World Finals.
Photo: Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media

It’s August 2013, Tulsa, Oklahoma. J.B. Mauney mounts Bushwacker, an epic bull with 42 straight buck-offs. “The best ever.” Stadium lights glare, announcers boom over loudspeakers and the audience stirs, ready to cheer for an unprecedented win or lament an unfortunate but unsurprising loss. Mauney has lost to Bushwacker before. Eight times. “There’s something about J.B. Mauney this weekend, and specifically tonight, that makes you think maybe, just maybe,” an announcer says, as gripped as the crowd, “the impossible can happen.”

The camera pans to Mauney in the chute. He adjusts his gear as casually as he might tighten a shoelace. The gates fly open, and the bull explodes into the arena, flinging the rider around like a crash test dummy. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four …

Mauney flails rhythmically, grasping the bull rope with one hand while conducting a frantic orchestra with the other. Five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds and just barely eight before he collides with the ground, victorious. Bushwacker’s 1,500-some pounds come down, hooves missing Mauney by inches.

Glory of the ride: Silvano Alves is a three-time PBR world champion.

Glory of the ride: Silvano Alves is a three-time PBR world champion.

“It’s over! It’s over!” the announcer hollers. “We’ve just seen history!”

These moments are about timing and the perfect match-up, and in many ways, the Professional Bull Riders has had that chemistry with Las Vegas. The PBR World Finals have taken place here for the past 22 years, each time revealing the entertainment capital’s cowboy roots. And as the organization that started with 20 riders in 1992 has grown into a phenomenon more than 600 strong with an audience spanning the globe, this city has been an essential platform.

“Nevada has a heritage of cowboys,” says Ty Murray, a world-champion rodeo cowboy nine times over and cofounder of the PBR. “National Finals Rodeo is here, the biggest happening in the rodeo world. That’s the biggest cowboy congregation there is, and the biggest congregation that Vegas has. ... Everybody that’s a cowboy, [Las Vegas is] where they want to end up, because that’s where the finals are, and that’s the biggest stage in bull riding.” The PBR reports that its regular broadcasts reach half a billion households in 40 countries, and the finals flood the Thomas & Mack with 80,000 fans over five days.

The prize pool has grown from $300,000 the first year to $2.3 million today; the rider named PBR World Champion on October 25 will take home nearly half. The World Finals are often called the Super Bowl of bull riding, an apt comparison for a breakaway sports outfit that modeled itself after the majors.

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As rodeo’s marquee discipline and the “original extreme sport,” bull riding’s standalone potential seems obvious now. But it took the vision and guts of those 20 guys back in ’92 to push it there. They met in Scottsdale, Arizona, each committing $1,000 to launch the Professional Bull Riders. Football has the NFL, basketball the NBA, and the PBR’s founders shot for a similar fan- and rider-centric organization.

Some of the PBR founders got together a few years back. No doubt they're proud of how their vision has manifested.

Some of the PBR founders got together a few years back. No doubt they're proud of how their vision has manifested.

“We wanted to take the most popular event that’s in rodeo and make it a true professional, followable sport,” Murray says. Prior to the PBR, competitions were scattered and poorly covered, and they definitely weren’t televised on mainstream stations. Today, the PBR’s Built Ford Tough Series airs weekly on CBS, CBS Sports Network and others around the world. Top riders have big sponsorships and followings at the events and on social media, and some of the bulls do, too.

“It appeals to everyone across the board, from extreme sports enthusiasts to attorneys, doctors and celebrities,” says PBR spokeswoman Denise Abbott, adding that the draw is expanding, the traditional 40-something demographic moving younger.

“One of the strengths we have is that we’re very diverse, from kids to grandparents,” CEO Sean Gleason says of the PBR’s fanbase. “We have a lot more 18- to 34-year-olds in the audience, but we’re not losing anyone—just growing.”

2014 PBR World Finals: Round 5

Murray, who knows the singular thrill of staying astride wildly bucking tonnage for the required eight seconds, thinks the key to bull riding’s success is accessibility: “It’s the only sport in the world where you could pluck anyone off the street and they would sit there completely entertained. It’s exciting and explosive and dangerous, and the rules are easy to understand.” He likens the excitement of watching a ride to seeing ancient gladiators clash. And, in typical fashion, Vegas takes that energy and makes it bigger. Murray says it was the obvious choice for the PBR’s pinnacle (not to mention its first-ever Cowboy Spring Break in May). For the restaurants, gambling and entertainment, but also because the city is a cowboy destination, and has always been.

Next year the World Finals will leave the Thomas & Mack—its home of 17 years—for the Las Vegas Arena, now under construction on the Strip. And the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority just announced that the city’s partnership with the PBR, “a natural fit” going back to ’95, has been extended through 2018. It’s another in a series of strides since the PBR began, and should drive the momentum of “the toughest sport on dirt.”

“It’s very dangerous, and it’s very real. That’s why guys do it, and that’s why people pay to watch them do it,” Murray says. “It takes the words ‘extreme sport’ to a whole other level.”

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