Riding the success of a popular Netflix reality show, Formula 1 has won new fans and sponsors, and is a darling of the moment with sports media.
Helped in part by the hit show “Drive to Survive,” now confirmed for at least a sixth season, the Mexico Grand Prix did well last Sunday, averaging 1 million viewers on ESPN.
Another sport we periodically cover is a scrappy underdog which isn’t getting quite the amount of media attention as red-hot F1, yet one that, without fanfare, attracted many more eyeballs than last weekend’s race south of the border on the same Sunday.
In the five o’clock hour, CBS aired a recap of the 2022 PBR Team Series season as the new league heads toward its inaugural championship weekend beginning Friday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The broadcast peaked at 2.2 million viewers.
Previously, in late September, the PBR Teams “Game of the Week” on CBS from Ridgedale, Missouri, was the second most-watched sport that Sunday afternoon, trailing only the NFL. Then in early October, PBR Rattler Days in Fort Worth put up more big numbers, peaking at 3.2 million total viewers
The idea of lone-gun bull riders now competing on teams may have been a shock to many when team competition began in July, but fans have clearly taken to the new format.
They’ve watched riders bond in the locker room as a band of brothers going to battle and then hooting and hollering for one another in the bucking chutes. They’ve seen a rider get rocked by a bull then return to the chutes in a neck brace to root for his teammates. PBR has grown consistently for nearly three decades – expect a big 30th anniversary party when
the individual “Unleash The Beast” series comes to Madison Square Garden Jan. 6-8 – by fielding a compelling product on the dirt, presented to fans in an amped-up atmosphere that’s more rock- and-roll than country music.
The team series continued to harness those simple basics.
The sport is still a rapid-fire progression of man-versus-beast, lightweight-versus-heavyweight matchups accompanied by loud music, flashing lights and pyro. “PBR is a complete sports-entertainment hybrid,” said Andrew Giangola, the sport’s head of PR who recently released a bull riding book, Love & Try.
“Imagine, after the dirt is lit on fire and aerial bombs go off, an entertainer in clown makeup out on the 50-yard line of an NFL game making politically incorrect jokes amid high-flying feats of athleticism ending in violent
collisions. That’s PBR. There’s nothing like it. And I think that can be confusing for sports media wondering, ‘Am I covering a spectacle or a sport?’”
But make no mistake: the Team Series, while keeping the entertainment elements that distinguish the spectacle, has also aligned the on-the-dirt competition with sports fans’ zone of comfort and familiarity.
The league started with a player draft. Blockbuster trades were made. The five-on-five bull riding games began, and fans saw high-scoring shootouts, upsets, and bottom-of-the-fifth walk- off wins. \
The team concept has given PBR more dramatic moments, the kind of emotional payoff fans are accustomed to in following team sports.
It also helps that the superstars of the sport have delivered.
No. 1 Draft pick Jose Vitor Leme lived up to his advance billing and multi-year contract with four game-winning walk-off rides for the Austin Gamblers on his way to a 19-for-25 season (76%) and MVP honors.
Derek Kolbaba of the Oklahoma Freedom had three consecutive bottom-of-the-fifth walk-off rides to dramatically win each game in the Freedom’s inaugural homestand.
Meantime, Ednei Caminhas has been solid for the Texas Rattlers, including going 3-for-3 down state in Austin. What makes that special? The affable Brazilian, who was the 2002 World Champion, is conquering 1,800-pound bulls bred to buck at 47 years old!
With stars spread across eight teams, the inaugural Teams season has been marked by parity. Six different teams won in the 10-event regular season. And six of the eight teams held the No. 1 ranking at some point during the season.
For the nascent league, all eyes are on the three-day title tournament in Las Vegas. PBR Commissioner and CEO Sean Gleason predicted on his Facebook page the most exciting bull riding fans will have ever seen.
CBS Sports Network will carry the action live (8 p.m. PT Friday and Saturday and 1 p.m. PT on Sunday). In another innovation, the CBS broadcast team is anchored by Kate Harrison, and
veteran reporter Allen Bestwick was brought in to offer a fresh perspective, complemented by Western Sports insiders 7-time PRCA Champion Sage Kimzey, Matt West and Flint Rasmussen.
Gleason calls the league’s first season a resounding success.
It will be interesting to see if his prediction for this weekend holds up. Beyond that, will the Teams season invigorate the upcoming individual PBR Unleash The Beast tour, when individual competition returns on Thanksgiving weekend?
And perhaps the biggest question: When will the colorful, swashbuckling, half-crazy cowboys of the PBR get their own reality series?
