It’s a mixed February sports weekend, between NBA All-Star, The Olympics, pitchers and catcher reporting and Daytona getting NASCAR going, but the PBR, which I got to witness in January, is still finding ways to cut through the clutter with its own narrative in its 25th anniversary season.
The Professional Bull Riders began 25 years ago when 20 cowboys broke away from the rodeo to form a league singularly focused on the most dangerous, final act of rodeos that was the main draw to most of the crowds: those half-crazy riders getting on big, powerful bulls.
For years, as its events started with pomp and pyro, the pumped up arena announcer would shout, “This isn’t the rodeo…it’s the Pee-Bee-RRR!”
A quarter century later, the PBR is returning to its rodeo roots.
Coming full circle, the league is now in its fifth year of producing a big rodeo called “The American” (Feb. 24) in conjunction with its Iron Cowboy (Feb 25) at AT&T Stadium, proving fans are interested in rodeos tied to PBR events. The success of this model was reinforced the past two years as PBR’s “Last Cowboy Standing” combined with the Helldorado Rodeo to anchor Helldorado Days, Last Vegas’ longstanding birthday celebration in May.
The bull-riding league is off to a very strong start in 2018, setting local attendance records at five of the six first elite tour events. (The one exception, Madison Square Garden which we attended, was on track for a record before a late-week blizzard hit the Big Apple before the season opener.)
Amid success in the mainstreaming of traditional bull riding, the league is simultaneously going retro. This past week the PBR struck two major rodeo partnerships at the high school and professional levels.
The new alliances with the National High School Rodeo Association (NHSRA) and World Champions Rodeo Alliance (WCRA) show PBR and parent company Endeavor aspiring to take a greater share of the western sports market.
High School rodeo is now in 43 states with more than 12,000 student-athletes competing, eligible to win $1.8 million in annual scholarships at 1,800 NHSRA events. Each summer, the Junior High and High School finals are actually the two biggest rodeos in the world in terms of number of athletes and animal stock.
In pro rodeo, PBR says it will join with newly formed WRCA to invest in rodeo and create new opportunities for the industry, to produce three to four large-format, million-dollar plus payout events each year.
The rodeo strategy follows the PBR model – pay the most, provide opportunity for the best athletes in the world – cowboy and animal – and deliver the best rodeo product for the fans.
Long-term, PBR will attempt to sell the rights to both the high school and pro events to television partners. More immediately, it is investing in live streaming rodeos through RidePass, the new 24/7 digital streaming network announced this past Monday in Sports Business Journal.
Note RidePass’ name similarity with the successful UFC FIGHTPASS; PBR is drawing on best practices from its sister company, and Endeavor built a proprietary platform for the western sports OTT.
The network was conceived for fans to get all things PBR and other western sports. Members paying $6.99 a month get access to live, broadcast-quality coverage of competition rounds in the PBR 25th: Unleash the Beast (its top series sponsored by Monster Energy) that are not carried on CBS and CBS Sports Network, next-day on-demand access to the TV event rounds, more than 30 annual events from its number-two Velocity tour, PBR international events, along with original series, documentaries and news. (PBR is offering free 21-day trial at www.RidePass.com).
In jumping full force into rodeo, and putting the action on its new OTT, the league’s strategy is to draw on its expertise in bringing loud, pulsating events to different parts of the country where rodeo doesn’t traditionally exist or to current rodeo markets at a time of the year when there isn’t a rodeo happening.
When fans attend one of PBR’s thumping, high-energy shows, they’re dazzled with the pyro, lights and music that is much more rock & roll and hip hop than traditional country music. PBR says it will similarly modernize rodeo.
The question is, how will the traditional rodeo audience take to such changes? Can modernizing the rodeo bring in new fans who never thought the rodeo was for them, as has been the case with bull riding?
Other sports have faced a similar challenge. NASCAR’s attempt at expanding from its southeastern hot bed, fully diversify the fan and competitor base, and become a truly national tier-one mainstream sport is a Harvard Business School study on how difficult it is for an established brand with a rabid base to continue to overserve its core while winning new customers.
PBR is saying the strategy is additive and events like The American in AT&T Stadium next week prove a market for big, higher-payout rodeos.
The sport has done a great job understanding and marketing to its core fan base. But the rodeo fan is different and typically more traditional than the PBR fan. How will they take to a slicker event production, edgier entertainment and hip hop cranked to the gills?
In returning to its roots, it will be interesting to watch how PBR markets to the rodeo audience. The first RidePass rodeo will stream from Las Vegas in early May. Stay tuned.
