This is clearly NOT a rodeo

Since the Professional Bull Riders conducted its first season in 1994, the association regularly has produced great story lines.

The main reason for that is the PBR has capitalized on showcasing rodeo's headline event. The fierce battles between cowboys and bulls always makes for a great story.

The PBR also has been a great topic to write on because its organizers continually strive to be innovative. Their desire to stay on the cutting edge influenced me to consistently cover the PBR in my weekly rodeo and horse show column for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and ultimately to ask to come on board with the PBR to write a regular column.

The PBR is always on to something I want to cover in the newspaper, such as testing bulls for steroids, offering a cowboy a $1 million bonus if he can stay on the World Champion Bull, or allowing cowboys to select their bulls at tour stops.

"We try new things" said Cody Lambert, the PBR's longtime livestock director and a founding father. "We don't want to fix the sport because we think that it's broke. But we want to advance the sport every year. We want to keep advancing it because we know it's great, but we don't want to get stale and stagnant. We want to keep growing and improving."

Even when the PBR was in its beginning stages, I sensed that I was writing about the start of something big. When the PBR conducted its inaugural World Finals in Las Vegas and the total purse was only $275,000 (the World Finals average winner has earned in the neighborhood of $275,000 in recent years), it was obvious that they had the right sports business model.

That first year, the PBR had the world's top bull riders at the MGM Grand Hotel for a two-day finals (it's now seven days). They also had a TV contract with The Nashville Network and they were paying their star competitors very well.

Those fundamental elements are still in place and growing. Today, it's networks such as Versus, NBC and Fox that are handling the broadcasting and making bull riding a sport that both fans and the media can easily follow. No other western sports association broadcasts its top regular-season shows on a continual basis and posts the world standings on national TV immediately after the performance.

"We are a sport that's followable on television," said seven-time world all-around champion Ty Murray, another PBR founding father. "Rodeo is the same on television as it is in person. It's a show that you watch. But ours is a followable sport that's live that you can tune in and follow it every week."

The PBR World Champion now receives a $1 million bonus and also has great opportunities to earn prize money during the regular season. I've always been intrigued with the PBR emphasis on awarding big money. For example, defending World Champion Justin McBride earned $200,000 from a promotion called the National Champion Award Program in October. McBride, who lives in Elk City, Okla., first pocketed a $50,000 bonus for clinching the regular-season title, then he won an additional $150,000 for making a qualified ride aboard Scene of the Crash in Columbus, Ohio, which was the PBR's last regular-season stop in the 2007 Ford Series.

That helped McBride finish the year with more than $1.8 million, a record for any western sports organization.

A more recent example of big prize money is Clayton Williams earning $525,000 after winning the Copenhagen Challenger Tour Championship title in Oklahoma City in February. He also won the same show in 2007 and earned $215,000. So, Williams pocketed $740,000 for winning two weekend bull ridings.

That's the type of material that I'm looking for as a columnist. Journalists are always hunting for new trends and want to report on how breaking with the longtime traditions can take a sport to another level.

In the late 1990s, the PBR opted to offer $1 million at the World Finals, a big move at the time. Last year, the purse was $3.2 million.

The PBR also opted to waive entry fees on the top tier tour and offer appearance fees in the late 1990s, and that was really breaking with rodeo tradition. Rodeo was founded on cowboys gathering, putting up their money and awarding only the top finishers.

So, when the PBR announced that it was going to actually pay cowboys to show up, it made a great column topic. In rodeo, even the sport's elite pay to play. So, to get paid to come and ride was a great reversal of a long time trend (The PBR Built Ford Tough tour members receive $400 for a two-day event and $575 for a three-day show).

When the PBR instituted the draft earlier this year to allow cowboys to select the bulls to ride at some of the stops on the Ford Series, which was another big break from tradition. The random draw always has been a basic element of rodeo and the decision to allow riders to select their bulls probably rankled some longtime die-hard fans.

But the draft is a big hit with the fans, said Joe Kusek, the longtime columnist for the Billings Gazette, the daily newspaper in Billings, Mont. He recently wrote a great column about the abundance of fans who turned out for the draft when it was conducted at a hotel on April 19 as the Built Ford Tough Series stopped in Billings.

"The PBR is always doing something that involves the fans," Kusek said in an interview. "They do a lot for the bull riders, but they keep the fans first and foremost. The draft, for example, gives fans more ownership to the sport when they can discover the personalities for the bull riders."

He's referring to the brief moment when riders take the microphone and pick their bulls as the draft is conducted at a host hotel or on a stage in the arena. Fans learn that some bull riders are shy and others are very talkative. They learn that some are bigger risk takers.

PBR Chief Executive Officer Randy Bernard said the PBR has instituted concepts such as the draft to "create Monday morning coffee talk chatter." He wants fans to gather and talk about why a cowboy picked a specific bull and the outcome.

Historically, the PBR has looked at the conventional rodeo circuits and asked what could be done differently to appeal to the fans. One of the most basic concepts was consistently pitting an all-star cast of riders against very rank bulls.

When the PBR got rolling in the mid 1990s, one bull rider told me that outside the PBR he might draw only four higher caliber bulls in a month, and a lot of mediocre animals. But when he began riding on the PBR tour, he would face four high-caliber bulls in one week.

The matchup between great riders and bulls makes great newspaper articles. It's like writing on a high-profile showdown between two world-class heavyweight boxers.

Over the years, the PBR has had many great match-ups such as Michael Gaffney against Little Yellow Jacket, Jim Sharp against Dillinger and most recently Renato Nunes against the World Champion Bull Chicken on a Chain (for a score of 95.75).

The PBR received media attention in 2003 when organizers matched Chris Shivers against World Champion Bull Little Yellow Jacket on national TV for $1 million. Shivers was denied the $1 million when he was bucked off.

Those types of matchups impress longtime Dallas Morning News rodeo columnist Ed Knocke.

"What you get with the PBR is great bulls and great cowboys," Knocke said. "It's the best against the best and it's a show that's hard to beat. When you go to the World Finals in Las Vegas, every bull is top quality and it's amazing how well the riders can put up with it because the bulls are so rank."

With all that in mind, here are some questions for you, the fans.

1. What are some great stories and trends in the PBR for the media to cover? 2. How can the media cover the PBR better? 3. What can PBR organizers do to create more media attention? 4. What's your favorite PBR storyline from the past 15 seasons?