Team Bull Riding a thing? The skeptical sports world may have looked quizzically on the idea as a gimmicky ploy. Go ahead and prove the concept PBR. So…
The PBR Teams league finished its third season in Las Vegas last weekend with an instant playoff classic on the CBS Game of the Week.
The fifth-seeded Austin Gamblers – a team fans like to call “The New York Yankees of the PBR” for spending whatever it takes to secure the best bull riders – took on the No. 1 Kansas City Outlaws, and went a perfect 5-for-5 to edge the Outlaws by one bull. Then they rode four more to beat the Carolina Cowboys to become the league’s third champions in three years.
The Gamblers’ 9-for-10 showing on Championship Sunday produced the most exciting game of the season when it counted most.
PBR CEO and Commissioner Sean Gleason likes to point out the 32-year-old sport’s success has always been driven by the arena product – the world’s best riders against the rankest bulls engaged in the wildest 8 seconds in sports, packaged up in a fun, high-energy rock show atmosphere. Teams add to that by making the sport more relatable to casual sports fans familiar with wins and losses, coaches’ decisions, an annual draft, trades, and even concepts like the injured reserve.
Fans also expect to see their teams in action locally. So far, that’s been a scheduling albatross for a league that’s still more like a traveling tour – playing a 12-event regular season (all teams travel into a city to play head-to-head games) comprised of 10 homestands and two neutral site events.
The New York Mavericks, for example, had their inaugural homestand at Barclays Center in Brooklyn in August. They’ll be back next August. Can the so-called “Concrete Cowboys” truly build a rabid fan base with one event a year?
Nevertheless, after nearly three decades of consuming individual competition, fans have taken to the concept of bull riding games. Event attendance was up +15% this season, the league’s third. Two CBS Game of the Week broadcasts peaked at 2.1 million viewers.
The PBR product centers on watching something spectacular – cowboys hanging on to fearsome bulls more than 10 times their size. And let’s face it, qualified rides are more exciting than buck offs. With the support of coaches and teammates, riding percentages are more than 10% higher in team competition vs. the individual Unleash The Beast (40% vs. 29%), which will begin its season from Nov. 15, running to the mid-May championship at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
Gleason expected the league to expand but was surprised it happened so fast. Heading into the 2024 season, the league’s third, Marc Lasry’s Avenue Sports Fund launched the New York Mavericks, and the Oklahoma Wildcatters were acquired by LIV golfer Talor Gooch.
Team valuations exploded: the first teams reportedly sold for less than $3 million. Two years later, two new ones went for over $20 million.
PBR CMO Mark Fine recognizes key areas of growth – courting Gen Z and finding ways to become more involved in cities where one team hosts the other 9 only once a season.
“When you look at avid sports fans – those attending events, buying the merchandise and watching on television – the sweet spot is kids who attended a game when they were 8 years old. They’re hooked for life,” Fine said.
PBR and the teams are developing strategies to address both youth and to be more present in local team markets.
The league will also continue to promote the bull side of each ride, bringing in A-listers to meet the animal athletes, like Mark Wahlberg visiting bull housing in Las Vegas and reminding fans that the Teams Championship official after party was going down at his nearby Mexican restaurant Flecha Cantina.
For Gleason, Fine, and PBR teams that are still the new kid on the block, the next step is to make the cowboy bull riders local celebrities as big as the one offering free guac.
