The bucks stop here
Sport goes rock concert

By Jim Stafford

Published: February 8, 2007

Before the first bull is bucked in the $1 million U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. Challenger Tour Championship here next week, the Professional Bull Riders Inc. wants to make one thing clear: this ain't no rodeo.

Instead, the PBR will bring a high-energy spectacle to the Lazy E Arena and the Ford Center beginning Feb. 12 that promises a rock concert-like production wrapped around an eight-second battle between cowboy and an angry bull.

The sport of professional bull riding has distanced itself from its pure rodeo roots, although it shares the western heritage, said Randy Bernard, chief executive officer of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based PBR Inc.

"If you see our sport, it's more like a Rolling Stones concert where we have nine semi-trucks full of production,” Bernard said. "It's going to be very high energy, very electric, and comparing us to rodeo is like comparing NASCAR to Formula One racing. We are two completely different sports within the western industry.”

The Challenger Tour Championship will be presented by the PBR in a partnership with Oklahoma City-based Express Sports and the Lazy E Arena. Only the PBR world finals in Las Vegas rivals the Oklahoma City event in prestige and prize money, Bernard said.

"We had one major, the world finals in Las Vegas; we thought, ‘why can't we do another one somewhere across the country,'” Bernard said. "I shared my interest with several different cities across the country, and Bob Funk said, ‘I want to take the risk.'”

Funk said he signed on as a partner to ensure the event stayed in Oklahoma City. He did the same thing for the city's two minor league sports franchises, the Oklahoma City Blazers hockey team and the Oklahoma RedHawks Triple A baseball team.

"I said ‘Bob, there is a chance we will lose money on this event the first couple of years,'” Bernard said. "He said ‘This is something we need in Oklahoma' and he was 110 percent behind it.”

The PBR event has been held in Oklahoma City for the past two years, but offered a much smaller purse.

"Express Sports tackled it and kept it here on behalf of the citizenry of Oklahoma City and Oklahoma,” Funk said. "Randy was kind enough to step up to the plate and make it a million-dollar purse next week. It's basically to prove to the citizens of Oklahoma City that we're willing to put our money on the line for the sake of great entertainment for them.”

Funk said ticket sales and sponsorships for the event have gone well, although he did not have exact numbers. Bernard would only say that he hoped to break even on the event.

"When you put up a million-dollar purse, it takes heavier support than it might for a regular Built Ford Tough (PBR) Series event,” Funk said. "The community has gotten behind, and I think they are supporting it extremely well. We are expecting big crowds both Saturday and Sunday.”

For bull riding fans, the Challenger Tour Championship will offer the top 10 riders from its Built Tough Ford Series, and another 25 from its Challenger Tour, all competing in three rounds of competition Feb. 16-18 at the Ford Center. Added into that mix will be 10 qualifiers from three days of the Express Open Qualifying rounds at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie on Feb. 12-14. Almost 250 bull riders have paid an entry fee of $800 each for the right to try to qualify for the Challenger Tour Championship final rounds at the Ford Center, Bernard said.

The Oklahoma City event will offer round prize money of $100,000 with $50,000 going to each night's winner. The overall winner could earn as much as $400,000 to $500,000, he said.

The Challenger Tour Championship is one of more than 325 PBR events sponsored. Total sponsorships for PBR events have grown to $23.5 million from just $365,000 when Bernard took the helm in 1995.

"Our television exposure has probably been the biggest reason for our success,” Bernard said. "We've been able to create more than 400 hours of television per year, and we are broadcasting in over half a billion homes around the world in 49 countries, as well as in the United States here on NBC, the Fox Network, Versus (formerly Outdoor Life Network) and Telemundo.”

The final two rounds of the Oklahoma City event will be on the Versus network.

"I think the reason for so much appeal and the reason we've been able to grow so fast is the sport offers so much,” Bernard said. "It's very dangerous. It's very easy to understand. You stay on eight seconds and you are going to get a score.

"We have tried to brand ourselves that there are two great athletes in every eight-second ride. We really believe the PBR brand is to bull riding what the NFL is to football or the NBA is to basketball.”