‘Let’s roll it out in style.’ How Fort Worth hopes to attract rodeo fans at Dickies

It’s a given that the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo will wow fans in the new state-of-the-art Dickies Arena this year for the first time.

But officials also will attempt to make a big impression with a more stalwart pro rodeo that has a new approach.

The 2020 Stock Show Rodeo will feature a field of more accomplished competitors night after night in a tournament format instead of a mixture of average riders going up against world class competitors in an older, traditional format. The old format used at Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum often resulted in too many sluggish rides during the two-hour performances.

The 2020 rodeo also is adding new elements such as a larger purse, tougher bucking stock, national TV broadcasts and a fan zone.

Brad Barnes, the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo’s president and general manager, said he wants the rodeo to captivate fans in a big way.

“We have one chance to make a first impression,” he said.

Competitors will see a substantial increase in the overall purse. The total purse at last year’s rodeo was $666,990. But this year, competitors will be riding and roping for more than $1 million in prize money during the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association/Women’s Professional Rodeo Association show that’s scheduled for Jan. 24-Feb. 8.

The Stock Show’s 16-day pro rodeo also will feature a tougher field of bucking broncs and bulls.

“We’re not only spending money on purse, but we’re also spending additional money on making sure that we give these guys the best stock we can bring in here,” Barnes said.

For example, the rodeo has contracted a wild and reckless pen of bucking stock from the Calgary Stampede in Alberta, Canada, which is renowned for broncs that can make a cowboy dine on arena dirt.

“It’s been on bucket list for a long time,” Barnes said of getting the Calgary Stampede involved. “But it just didn’t make sense until we got into the new arena and had this new format and we’re raising the overall elements of the rodeo.”

Dave Appleton, the 1988 world all-around champion from Fort Worth who serves in a Stock Show director role and will offer commentary on the rodeo’s national TV broadcasts, said officials have wanted to make big changes for a while, but opted to wait until the rodeo moved into the new arena.

“I think it was one of those cases where, ‘let’s wait until we have the right format, the right venue and roll it out in style,’” Appleton said.

Michael Otero of Weatherford, a 2019 National Finals Rodeo tie-down roping qualifier, said he appreciates the rodeo’s revamping in a much larger venue. Will Rogers seated about 5,700 fans for each performance while Dickies will seat about 9,300.

“I like that they are modernizing it and making it more appealing to the audience,” Otero said. “That’s always great for rodeo. You bring in more people who are paying for tickets and that always benefits the cowboy eventually because it’s more money that can be put back in the contestants’ pockets.”

Tournament-style format

But the big sweeping change is the rodeo’s format. In past years, the Fort Worth Stock Show has held what’s termed as a ‘’traditional rodeo” format. It allowed part-time riders who lacked sharper skills on a consistent basis to compete alongside world class competitors throughout the rodeo, which often resulted in lackluster performances.

But the 2020 Stock Show will feature contestants who earned the right to compete in the high-profile pro rodeo. Each event will feature a field of 56 credentialed competitors. For example, the field includes contestants who competed in the December Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas and riders who have excelled on the PRCA’s circuit system.

This year, the Stock Show Rodeo will place contestants in a tournament format instead of the traditional format that determined the champion by an aggregate score of three or four runs accumulated throughout the rodeo.

The tournament format has seven brackets. Throughout the earlier part of the 16-day rodeo, competitors will advance to a semifinal round, which is scheduled for Feb. 6-7. From there, the top eight in each event will advance to the final round. At that point, no previous scores will count and the rider with the best score or time will become the 2020 champion.

Organizers are betting that the new format will be easier for fans to follow. In the past, some events featured competitors riding in more rounds than others during the prelims. For example, tie-down ropers made only two runs in an attempt to qualify for the rodeo’s 12-competitor finals round, but bareback riders competed three times. The varying formats confused the novice fan, organizers said.

“What it boils down to, if you think about any other sporting event, when that event is over there’s a clear winner, and people, they understand that,” Barnes said. “Unfortunately, because of the length of our rodeo, the number of days in our rodeo, it was very difficult to follow.”

But under the new format, the competitors in every event will be on the same timetable as they advance toward the Feb. 8 final round.

“The format really is a fan-friendly format and that’s what it boils down to,” Barnes said. “After all, we’re concerned about the contestants and we want to create a good environment for the contestants, but we’re also in the entertainment business. At the end of the end of the day, we have to entertain those people who are buying those tickets.”

Fan-friendly atmosphere

The rodeo also will feature a fan zone for the first time.

“In our previous arena, those guys would run in there and compete, and there’s a hat out there, but the folks who are sitting in the stands didn’t get to personalize with that contestant,” Barnes said. But in the new Dickies Arena, spectators “will have a chance to come down and meet and rub shoulders with some of those contestants and get autographs and talk to them.”

In addition to the traditional PRCA/WPRA Rodeo, the Stock Show has scheduled other rodeos such as the Jan. 17-18 Ranch Rodeo, which will be the first rodeo ever in Dickies Arena. There are also other shows such as the Cowboys of Color Rodeo on Jan. 20 and Rodeo X on Jan. 23 that will feature credentialed competitors in both individual and a team format.

All in all, 25 performances are scheduled throughout the Jan. 17-Feb. 8 Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo and each of them will be broadcast live on the Cowboy Channel (an RFV-TV sister channel that regularly shows western and rodeo sports) on national television.

Matt Brockman, the rodeo’s media spokesperson, said that 10 of the 25 performances already were sold out as of Thursday afternoon.

Brockman said organizers are coming with a goal to convert novice fans who typically attend the Stock Show Rodeo as a social event to begin following rodeo as a sport.

“If we are going to grow the fan base for rodeo, then we’ve got to get more creative in finding ways to engage these fans,” Brockman said.

“Whether it’s with this format that allows the fans to follow the progression of an athlete through a bracket system, if it’s utilizing the technology that we’ve got in Dickies Arena and then putting all 25 performances out on national television, that gives us an opportunity. If we’re truly going to grow the fan base for the sport, we’ve got to do these things.”

This story was originally published January 13, 2020 at 6:00 AM.