Of traitors and team players

When I recently talked with a mother of a well-known roping competitor about how great it is to watch the Professional Bull Riders thrive in today's western world, she gave me one big lecture.

She made it sound as if the PBR was the big traitor, that bull riders weren't team players and they had pulled the big sponsors away from organized rodeo and now the competitors in the other events were not getting their due.

Wrong!

When the PBR began in the early 1990s, it was the world's top bull riders who weren't getting what they deserved. For many years, it was their event that was the main draw at rodeos. That's why many rodeos start with a section of bull riding and conclude with the sport's headline event.

And that's why the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association now has a bull riding tour that's separate from traditional rodeo.

We live in a country that offers freedom to develop new ideas to improve our quality of life. And that's exactly what the PBR's founding fathers aspired to do when they met in a hotel room in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1992, to make their initial investments in the PBR.

The Ty Murrays, the Jim Sharps, the Tuff Hedemans, the Michael Gaffneys, the Clint Brangers, the David Fourniers and the Cody Lamberts of that day realized bull riding was in a class of its own, and each PBR founder diligently worked to form what has become the model western riding association.

"We figured that bull riding had more value and it was more dangerous," said Cody Lambert, the PBR's longtime livestock director. "It wasn't any harder do well in bull riding than team roping or any other rodeo event, but bull riders had injuries that you didn't experience as often in the other events."

The PBR's founders reasoned that bull riders have a shorter life span as competitors. And so bull riders needed to make the big bucks while they were competitive. The PBR stepped up and provided lucrative opportunities for them.

"For years, bull riders had more than carried their load for rodeo and didn't get paid accordingly," Lambert said. "We were doing an event where there was a chance that you could die out there, and there's very little chance that you are going to come out without some injuries."

As a writer of rodeo and equine columns for newspapers, I enjoy covering all rodeo events. But it's very clear that some are way more popular than others.

Look at it this way. Take bull riding out of the picture and just compare calf roping with steer wrestling. Bulldogging does fine when rodeo organizers mix it with the other events during a two-hour performance.

But it's not an event that usually thrives on its own. Today, I don't hear much about big weekend events that are centered around steer wrestling.

However, I do hear about big events that are built around roping. Every year, I cover the Windy Ryon Memorial Roping, which is traditionally held each May in Fort Worth. This year, the show drew the sport's elite and great crowds.

A similar traditional show that's successful is the Roping Fiesta that's a draw in San Angelo, Texas, each October.

But in order for those events to be successful, they must have sponsors as well. And so one could argue that those roping shows are pulling sponsors away from pro rodeo. The steer wrestlers could look at the Windy Ryon Roping and argue that the ropers are stealing the sponsors.

But the bulldoggers know better. And the ropers know they have a tradition-rich product to help them improve the quality of their pro rodeo lives by participating. Winning those events can put a good chunk of money in their pockets so they have more working capital to travel and enter rodeos.

And when ropers do that, and they've been doing it for a long time, I don't hear people calling them traitors because they thrive in shows that aren't sanctioned by the PRCA or any other rodeo organization.

If the truth be known, the participants of every western riding event would form the same type of national tour as the PBR's Built Ford Tough Series if they could.

Over the past two decades, the two events within rodeo that have substantially grown are bull riding and team roping. Bull riding has thrived because it's the superior spectator sport and team roping has done well because it's an outstanding participant sport, a great way to play cowboy pretty safely. The team ropers discovered that multitudes of people from all walks of life go nuts over hauling a horse to a venue to throw a loop.

Historically, the PBR emerged from rodeo, a sport that's comparable with track and field. When fans attend a track meet or the Olympics, there's the stark reality that some events are by far more popular than others. There are disciplines such as the 100 meters that prove to be a way bigger draw than the shot put or discus throw events.

At the Olympics, there are lower profile sports such as archery and the steeplechase, but there's the sense that the participants of those events are elated to be part of the same sporting spectacle as the short-distance speedsters, the swimmers and the gymnasts. When the gymnasts pull away and form their tours and rope in their own sponsors, it's very understandable.

And the same concept should be understandable in the world of rodeo. Bull riding is by far the most popular event and it must stand alone and thrive.

Take it from Lambert, who qualified for the National Finals Rodeo in bull riding and saddle bronc riding.

Lambert said he enjoyed competing in saddle bronc riding more than bull riding. But he also realized bull riding is what more fans want to see.

"I liked saddle bronc riding because it deals with horses and I like horses better than I like bulls," Lambert said. "Saddle bronc riding and the roping feels more like a cowboy type of sport. But the general public likes to see an extreme sport that's wild, and that happens to be the bull riding."

That's the reason western celebrations, such as the Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming and the National Western Stock Show in Denver, now feature PBR performances in addition to their longtime pro rodeos.

For years, bull riding was held captive by the philosophy that we're all in this together, and if one group forms a highly successful separate tour, then they're not team players. But that way of thinking has become archaic.

We live in the age of specialization, an era when rodeo has become a collection of specialists. In the old days of rodeo, even in the 1950s and 1960s, there were numerous cowboys who worked multiple events. Bareback riding might be a cowboy's forte, but he'd also enter the bull riding knowing that he had a chance to pick up extra money. In the early days of rodeo, it worked well to promote the concept of a western riding show with multiple events, especially in a day of numerous multiple-event cowboys.

But when the sport clearly became a showcase of mostly single-event competitors by the mid 1970s, star rodeo competitors welcomed successful single event competitions that featured elite cowboys and cowgirls. And bull riders later realized they could cash in because they had an outstanding product, and they should be applauded for seizing the opportunity.

So, any fan or participant of other rodeo events should not have a problem with the PBR for successfully organizing what has become a popular national sport.

"In the beginning, we were perceived as being anti-rodeo, but that was never the case," Lambert said "The idea was that we were going to expose our event as a stand-alone sport and get as many people as possible. And if they enjoyed bull riding, maybe they would become rodeo fans as well."