Inside Professional Bull Riders’ Plan to Upgrade the “Original Extreme Sport”

Back in the day, grizzled cowboys showed off their prowess by wrestling steers, roping calves, and clinging, for as long as possible, to the backs of snot-slinging bulls while their peers watched from the rails of an outdoor corral.

There were no pyrotechnics as the riders walked to the ring, no thumping jock jams. No tiny, prize-filled parachutes dropped from the rafters during intermission, sending fans crawling over each other in pursuit. And not even a single audience member watched the proceedings from inside a metal cage on the arena floor. Also, bull riding was an individual sport back then, not a team game.

That, my friends, has changed.

With the inception of Professional Bull Riders Camping World Team Series in 2022, the league created what now feels like rodeo 's version of the NFL. Sure, at PBR team competitions modern-day cowboys still try to stay atop thrashing, 1,500-pound bovines for eight-second bursts, but in this new variation of " the original extreme sport ," billionaire business moguls own teams that compete head-to-head in a tournament format. Coaches pick their rosters during an annual draft, and fans wearing shirts emblazoned with team logos attend events featuring live music, parades, and autograph sessions.

The atmosphere feels like pro wrestling mashed up with a rock concert, with a herd of ungulates tossed in. The league's next competition, PBR Rattler Days, begins Thursday at the Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth.

The PBR formed in 1992, when a group of twenty athletes broke from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and started an organization focused solely on bull riding.

While most PBR events are individual competitions, the organization has occasionally experimented with the team concept. Most recently, for a few years starting in 2017 it held an international event called the Global Cup, which pitted teams of cowboys from the United States, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and Mexico against one another. The winning country could claim it had the best bull riders of all.

"That got me thinking about the possibility of reimagining the age-old, uniquely individual sport as a team sport, and we started crafting plans to launch this team league," says Sean Gleason, CEO of PBR Inc. In July 2022, the organization's newest incarnation began with eight teams, including two from Texas—the Austin Gamblers and the Texas Rattlers , based in Fort Worth. The idea wasn't to attract traditional rodeogoers , but to appeal to sports fans who like rooting for their home team, no matter the game."The recipe for success is put the best bull riders on the best bulls and wrap it in a rock concert environment," Gleason says.

It took millions of dollars (he won't say how many) to make that a reality. Today the league has expanded to ten teams that compete in a dozen regular season games. Another expansion is likely in the next few years.

The events typically draw between 20,000 and 30,000 fans over three days. Each night features four "games," with five riders from one team competing against five riders from another team. Teams that earn the highest cumulative score of qualified rides win. The season kicks off in late July and builds to an October championship round in Las Vegas. The winner of that final event is the season champion. "I had lofty expectations when we launched the team series," Gleason said, "and so far it's exceeded all of them."

Last month, a PBR event at the Moody Center in Austin featured cowboys wearing fringed chaps and belt buckles the size of paperback books. Audience members wore spangly Western clothes and gathered for an outdoor fan event featuring music performances by Shaboozey, Wade Bowen, and Shinyribs. An announcer called each ride as it unfolded.

"It gives the fans a new way to cheer for a real American sport," said Cody Lambert, one of the original PBR founders and now head coach of the Texas Rattlers. That's especially true for fans who upgrade from regular stadium seats, which cost about $40 per adult, to tickets in what's called "the cage," a garden shed–sized box in the center of the arena. There, a handful of fans peer through the bars like divers in a shark cage as bulls cavort around them.

"It's one of most intense sports on the planet—a cowboy against a 1,500-pound bull that's all muscle and born to buck," says Gleason. "It's a bit of a NASCAR wreck every time the chute gate opens. It's also a competitive dance and when you do it right; it's a little poetic."

Investors seem to agree. Team owners include Johnny Morris, the CEO of Bass Pro Shops, who owns the Missouri Thunder, and John Fisher, the money behind the Oakland A's baseball team and the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team, who owns the Texas Rattlers. Egon Durban, CEO of the private equity firm Silver Lake, owns the Austin Gamblers, with Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell as a minority investor. "Bringing them into the sport has been fantastic," Gleason says. "It legitimizes the team competition. It's a real sports league with real owners and real competition."

Fans include Texas Rangers Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan and Chris Harrison, former host of TV's The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, both of whom attended PBR's August date in Austin. Yellowstone actor Cole Hauser and musician Kid Rock are also fans.

Here in Texas, league organizers are hoping to stir enthusiasm around an old-fashioned in-state rivalry. Both the Austin Gamblers and the Texas Rattlers have fared well in the league's first two years. In 2022, the teams finished the regular season in first and second place, respectively, although neither won the championship. And in 2023, the Gamblers won the regular season, while the Rattlers took the championship.

This year, the two Texas teams will square off one more time during the regular season in Fort Worth this weekend. Lambert, the Rattlers coach, downplays the rivalry angle. "Everyone tries to get you to talk that way, but in bull riding there's a camaraderie between riders," he says. "We try to win every single time, but we're very proud when the other guys win, too."

Among the riders are the Gamblers' Jose Vitor Leme of Brazil, a two-time world champion, and the Rattlers' João Ricardo Vieira, another top cowboy from Brazil.

Also on the Gamblers roster is Ezekiel Mitchell, 27, from Rockdale, about halfway between Austin and College Station. The son of a horse dentist, Mitchell says he first climbed on top of a bull when he was fifteen years old. Now it's his full-time job.

"It's controlled chaos," Mitchell says. "It's doing something that should be virtually impossible and making it possible."

It's a hard way to make a living. Earnings during the team season are mainly based on a rider's individual performance. Some riders have guaranteed contracts, but most sign incentive-driven bonuses. "The average guy on our team made two-hundred thousand dollars during the eleven-week season," Lambert says, although the top rider made $1.7 million.

Injuries are common . Gleason calls them inherent to the sport. "It's not a question of if it's going to happen," he says, "it's when and how bad."

It got bad at the Austin event. Rattlers team member Brady Oleson needed surgery to repair torn ligaments in his neck after a bull named Fast Flow threw him off its back. That moment ended Oleson's career.

That doesn't stop Mitchell and the other riders from hoping they'll get a chance to ride the top bull in the world—a yellow, 1,700-pounder named Man Hater, who will also be on the roster at Rattler Days. "He doesn't look like he'd be able to move the way he does," Lambert says. "But he jumps as high as a bull can jump, kicks with his back feet, then starts spinning."

That's a good thing for any rider who can hold on. Half of the score from a ride is based on the degree of difficulty given to the animal's performance. "What makes a great bull is what makes a great athlete—physical ability and competitive desire," Lambert says.

To prepare for the Fort Worth competition, Lambert ran his team through mental as well as physical drills this month. Workouts included practice rides on bulls and sprinting through an American Ninja Warrior–style obstacle course complete with monkey bars, rings, ropes, and pegboards.

"The mental part is you've got to ride by strength, feel, balance, and mostly reaction," Lambert says. "Every move that bull makes is to try to get you off his back and every move you make is to try to stay on."

And that—the essence of the sport—is one thing that hasn't changed since bull riding began.