Independence Days

On the national rodeo circuit, competitors are traveling frantically during the Independence Day weekend when there's an abundance of higher paying rodeos. It's called Cowboy Christmas.

And when I write my columns for newspapers next week, I'll make over the big winners, the riders and ropers who pocket $25,000 or $30,000 at multiple rodeos. It's a rare time of the year to rapidly make bigger money.

But the Professional Bull Riders' athletes can be thankful for one reality: almost every week is a Cowboy Christmas.

And bull riders should make the biggest bucks in the shortest amount of time, because they typically deal with more injuries than the competitors in other rodeo events.

"Anyone who is a bull rider in today's world takes into account that there's so much danger on the line, and they reason that if you are going to ride bulls, you need to go where the money is," said Randy Bernard, the PBR's longtime chief executive officer.

For the PBR's top bull riders, there's more than 30 tour stops scheduled on the Built Ford Tough Series from which winners typically walk away with more than $25,000 or $30,000.

Just scan through the list of shows and payouts of the 2009 regular season by visiting http://www.pbrnow.com/competition/FSDC/ and there lies the evidence.

So far, the lowest payout for a BFTS tour stop winner this season is $27,742, which went to former World Champion Ednei Caminhas after the Brazilian won a February stop in Oklahoma City.

The highest payout has been $60,690. World title race leader Kody Lostroh earned $60,690 after he won a one-day show in Fresno, Calif., in January. Cody Ford made the same amount when he snared the title in February at Glendale, Ariz., another one-day tour stop.

Bull riders can be thankful they compete in an sport with the kind of fan appeal and sponsorship dollars that enable organizers to pay that kind of money. They also can be thankful that the PBR's founding fathers of the early 1990s had the fortitude to realize that bull riding was a stand-alone sport and its champions could earn much bigger money if they would just organize a national tour of all-star riders against the toughest bulls around.

In reality, the founding fathers declared their independence from the conventional rodeo circuits. They realized that bull riding was far more popular than the other events and they no longer had to be held captive to sharing equal prize money with less prominent events.

The PBR's founding fathers - including Ty Murray, Cody Lambert, Tuff Hedeman, David Fournier, Clint Branger, Ted Nuce and Aaron Semas - issued the Bull Riders' Declaration of Independence when they made the association a smashing success.

No longer are the world's top bull riders enslaved to riding for smaller wages. No longer do they have frantically travel to five, eight or 10 shows in one week to garner $25,000 or $30,000.

In fairness, the chance to earn $25,000 or $30,000 is great for a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association bronc rider, roper, or bulldogger during Cowboy Christmas. And that's because those types of single rodeo events do not have enough popularity to warrant a national single event tour and prizes like bull riders have with the Ford Series.

As a journalist, I've watched PBR's liberation movement over the past two decades. I've seen cowboys move from having to travel to 50 to 100 rodeos to win the $50,000 that it took to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo to being able to earn the same amount at one or two BFTS shows.

And when I marvel at just how much the PBR liberated bull riders, I'm reminded of the Southwest Airlines commercial that says that their customers "are now free to move about the country" on a more frequent basis because the carrier offers lower fares and has made national air travel very affordable.

In the PBR, riders are now free to move about less often and earn more rapid rewards than ever.

One cowboy who had many Cowboy Christmas experiences was two-time PBR World Champion Justin McBride. When McBride became the first competitor in any bull riding or rodeo association to earn more than $5 million last year, he was quick to thank the PBR's founders.

"Every material thing that I have is because of our founding fathers," McBride said. "Without them not making all that much money at rodeos and then coming to the conclusion to start the PBR ? everything had to happen the way that it did in order for me to make $5 million. I'm glad that they got fed up with seeing guys not make enough money for what they do."

As McBride approached the $5 million mark in September, he was astounded that he had earned that kind of money over 10 years.

"It makes me pretty thankful because I know that there have been guys before me who never had that chance," McBride said

The reason McBride quickly earned $5 million was because the PBR has awarded a $1 million bonus to the World Champion since 2003, and McBride received an extra $1 million in 2005 and in 2007.

That $1 million bonus is another form of Cowboy Christmas that the PBR has put in place over the past 15 seasons. The seven-figure payoff is awarded at the November World Finals in Las Vegas, where last year's average winner earned $250,000 for finishing with the highest aggregate score after making eight rides.

If that's not enough, there are other lucrative shows such as the Copenhagen Bull Riding Challenger Tour Championship. Last year, winner Clayton Williams racked up more than $500,000 after winning the average in Oklahoma City.

Another thought: the PBR has grown so much in popularity that the Calgary Stampede had invited 13 PBR competitors to ride in its 2009 edition, which began Friday in the famous Alberta city. On July 12, the bull riding winner will receive $100,000 (Canadian) in addition to earnings in the qualifying rounds. Mike Lee, the 2004 PBR World Champion, took the coveted $100,000 last year, and a PBR rider has won the Stampede championship the past three years.

And that's one of many examples of how PBR riders can experience a Cowboy Christmas somewhere just about every week that bulls are bucking.