On the way to the mainstream, niche sports often face a common challenge – convincing fans, media, and partners that their participants are true athletes.
Today, few would claim NASCAR drivers are not real athletes. Decades ago, the sentiment was decidedly different.
Mark Martin, perhaps the best driver to never win a NASCAR championship, gave a memorable answer to a reporter questioning the athleticism of race car drivers. In the middle of a hot July afternoon, he said, go roll up your car’s windows, turn on the heat full blast, and drive as fast as you can, without stopping, from New York City to Washington DC.
“You tell me if that’s athletic,” Martin would say.
Story-telling that bred familiarity with its athletes has helped NASCAR zoom into the mainstream.
Niche sports still pushing to get on SportsCenter and into the thinning sports sections of hemorrhaging big city newspapers are running into the same educational barriers about their athletes.
Take Professional Bull Riders (PBR), for example.
Steve Eubanks, who wrote King of the Cowboys about legendary nine-time champion Ty Murray, noted that media unfamiliar with PBR view the riders as akin to “stunt men or guys shot from the cannon at a circus.”
Most media outside the core western and rodeo endemics see the sport as a fun spectacle. PBR is continually educating press that “America’s Original extreme sport” is all that and more.
In today’s PBR, the bulls are ranker, and the stakes are higher – both financially and physically. Riders need to be in good shape to not only make the eight seconds and get paid (there are no guaranteed contracts) but to walk away from a 1,800-pound bull genetically bred to buck.
Last week, Chase Outlaw – real name – got intimate with a bull at Cheyenne Frontier Days, a massive rodeo that drew some of PBR’s top stars to its bull riding section, which was produced by PBR and carried live by the league’s new OTT, RidePass. Outlaw literally broke his face – in 15 places. Doctors had to insert 12 metal plates and 68 screws.
The colorful Arkansas cowboy – who’d be played by the Tasmanian Devil if PBR had an animated film – says he’ll be back in a few weeks when PBR resumes its second half; the league says he’ll need to be medically cleared. Whatever the outcome, Outlaw will have a few good airport metal detector jokes.
That kind of wreck will always be part of the sport, but the genetically bred bulls are getting bigger and faster. Therefore, the cowboys are adopting rigorous exercise regimes to not only win more prize money but also survive those potentially life-altering eight seconds.
2008 PBR World Champion and the sport’s all-time ride leader, Guilherme Marchi, brought sizable attention to professional bull riders’ conditioning when appearing on the cover of Men’s Fitness as “the world’s fittest athlete.”
Reigning PBR World Champion Jess Lockwood and 2016 World Finals champion Ryan Dirteater were accomplished high school wrestlers. Lockwood likes hot yoga to stay limber and strong, while Dirteater (real name) will walk a balance beam, flip tractor tires, and hold a steel pipe over his shoulders.
Recognizing the importance of rider fitness and the wealth of workout angles among bull riders, Rogue Fitness has entered PBR to connect its brand to these often under-appreciated athletes…by telling their stories.
Rogue, the leading US-based manufacturer of strength and conditioning equipment, inked a multi-year partnership to become the “Official Strength Partner of the PBR.”
Rogue gets the position of the sport’s ultimate workout insiders through branded-content story telling on RidePass, highlighting the training and preparation needed in the world’s most dangerous organized sport.
With sales of strength and conditioning equipment, fitness gear and accessories entirely internet based, Rogue will also share PBR stories on its social and digital channels reaching several million people.
As part of the partnership, Rogue will provide mobile professional gym equipment for PBR riders on tour to use for conditioning, warmup/cool down, and rehab.
In addition to reaching millions of fans, Rogue owner Bill Henniger, who started the company in a garage in 2006 and has grown it to more than 500 employees at its new 600,000 square foot headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, likes that PBR is unapologetically patriotic. He was drawn to the only league whose athletes took a voluntary pledge to always stand for the national anthem in whichever country the sport competes in.
The PBR partnership adds to Rogue’s sponsorship of Strongman, weightlifting, powerlifting and functional fitness, including serving as the official equipment supplier for the CrossFit Games and The World’s Strongest Man. Rogue also has multifaceted involvement with the Arnold Sports Expo in Columbus and USA Weightlifting.
Endeavor (formerly WME |IMG), PBR’s parent company, owns and produces World’s Strongest Man through IMG, created by the company’s legendary Barry Frank. The world’s premier international competition in strength athletics that celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2017 is broadcast worldwide, including on the CBS Sports Network in the US and Channel 5 in the UK. Rogue Fitness is the exclusive equipment partner.
IMG is also CrossFit’s global representative for broadcast, sponsorship and licensing.
So clearly, Endeavor, best known for its talent representation, sports, fashion, events, and media arms, is becoming increasingly entrenched in the business of fitness, whether it’s programming, innovative Endeavor Global Marketing activations like Mich ULTRA’s “Ultra Fit Fest” weekend of training sessions, clinics, panels, classes and entertainment this fall in Scottsdale (visit www.ultrafitfest.com) , or a thriving sports training business.
PBR sister company UFC has seen its gyms explode in popularity and growth. There are now more than 150 UFC Gym locations – 20 of them outside the U.S., from Bahrain to Vietnam, drawing more than 150,000 annual members.
In July, the UFC said it will open locations in Japan next year, and a new branded gym in Kailua, Hawaii was announced this week. Insiders speculate about coming locations in Brazil, a huge fight market, and Russia, an obvious market of opportunity.
There’s history and best practices to draw on. IMG (which WME acquired in 2014) established itself in sports training when it purchased the famed Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in 1987. Now known as IMG Academy, the once 16-acre campus that could barely contain Andre Agassi now spans nearly 600 acres in Bradenton, Fla. along Florida’s Suncoast.
Founded as the world’s first, and at the time only, sports boarding program for tennis in 1978, the Academy revolutionized the development model for aspiring youth athletes. Forty years later, its boarding school offers eight sports for more than 1,100 full-time student-athletes from nearly 80 countries. Its growing list of alumni includes winners of more than 180 tennis Grand Slam titles, numerous NBA, MLB and MLS Draft selections and hundreds of pro and collegiate post-season award winners.
The sports training mecca is also a training base for many professional and collegiate athletes across multiple disciplines through its robust Athletic & Personal Development program, including PBR, Olympic athletes and eSports competitors.
Expansion in Bradenton continues with a lifestyle boutique hotel scheduled to open on Oct. 12. The Legacy Hotel at IMG Academy is yet another twist on the Academy’s unique blend of expertise offered now to corporate retreats and other groups.
PBR itself is drawing on IMG Academy’s expertise in breaking ground on a new PBR Sport Performance Institute in Pueblo, Colorado, which will offer specialized sports science training and camps for bull riding and other sports.
While the league’s new fitness partnership plays right into a sport trying to position “the toughest athletes in sports,” it also demonstrates a larger company’s aspiration to grow its brand and profits in the $83 billion global strength and fitness market in many different ways.
