Pro bull riding is finally back in Fort Worth. And this is not your daddy’s PBR.

When the Professional Bull Riders swings by Dickies Arena this weekend, it will be the first time the world’s top bovine busting association has brought its elite tour to Fort Worth in 16 years.

The PBR has conducted an event in the Metroplex since 1993 when organizers produced a couple of compelling shows at Cowtown Coliseum in the Fort Worth Stockyards during the association’s infant stages. But the PBR actually has not conducted a show in Fort Worth since 2004.

In 1995, the association was growing and its Fort Worth tour stop was moved from Cowtown Coliseum to Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum. The Cowtown Coliseum could seat only about 2,500 people and Will Rogers could hold more than 5,700.

At the time, the event was called the Tuff Hedeman Championship Challenge, the namesake of the legendary four-time world bull riding champion from Morgan Mill, and it was a mainstay on the elite tour throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s.

But by 2004, the PBR was booming and opted to move to the American Airlines Center in Dallas. In 2010, it moved to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where it has held a high-profile show every year.

“It’s been a story that we’ve seen in several markets where we’ve outgrown smaller facilities and have had to move to bigger ones,” said PBR commissioner Sean Gleason. “Fort Worth was one of those special places; every year it was one of our favorite events. The place was packed and we had a great time, but we needed a facility that could house more fans.”

This year, the PBR was not planning on being in Fort Worth. The association held its Global Cup, an international team competition, at AT&T Stadium in February.

But when the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, the PBR was forced to alter its schedule. Organizers decided to bring the Unleash The Beast, the association’s top-tier tour, to Dickies Arena, which opened in late 2019 and had been the host venue for the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo in January and February.

“We weren’t planning on going to Dickies Arena in August, but this is a different year,” said Cody Lambert, the association’s longtime livestock director who lives in the Bowie area. “Dickies Arena deserves a lot of attention. It’s a state-of-the-art arena.

“We go to lots of historic arenas such as the Staples Center [in Los Angeles] and Madison Square Garden [in New York], but I’ll put Dickies Arena up against any of them. It’s nice as any place as we’ve ever been. I hope we can go there in the future when people can plan around it and can sell 100% percent of the tickets.”

Early success

Lambert is among 20 bull riders who founded the PBR in a Scottsdale, Arizona, hotel room in 1992. Each cowboy put up $1,000 and launched the association.

The PBR experienced impressive growth from the get go. In the early days, it benefited from a TV contract with The Nashville Network and a sponsorship deal from Bud Light. The association also featured charismatic competitors such as Hedeman and Ty Murray who had built a following on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association circuit. Bull riding’s elite faced the high-profile bulls such as the late Bodacious at each event.

By the late 1990s, the PBR was filling arenas with twice as many seats as Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum.

“We’ve seen just steady growth year after year with the PBR brand,” Gleason said. “A lot of it has to do with the growth of our television property and being accessible to more fans. Over the years, the television coverage got better and better. CBS now affords us with 15 network broadcasts in a year.

“When you reach that many people who can tune in week in and week out, your fan base should be growing and it has for us. The TV exposure and the coverage will allow a fan to follow for the entire season.”

Gleason said the PBR also has expanded through social media campaigns and word of mouth.

“It’s a combination of great television and grinding it out in the marketing to get people to give us the first shot because when they come out first, they come for the spectacle and then we win them over with the sport and we earn fans for life,” he said.

The Unleash the Beast tour culminates with the PBR World Finals in Las Vegas, which is scheduled for Nov. 4-8 at T-Mobile Arena. Since 2003, the PBR has awarded the world champion a $1 million bonus in Las Vegas.

Since its humble beginnings in the 1990s, the PBR has thrived on pitting the world’s top bull riders against the toughest bovines.

“It’s nice to see it get out of a little niche where more people are starting to have more of an appreciation for what our guys are able to do and how much athletic ability it takes, how much guts it takes,” said Murray, a seven-time world all-around champion from Stephenville, who also was among the 20 cowboys who founded the PBR.

“It’s an athletically challenging sport. I’ll put it up against any sport in the world on how it’s physically/athletically challenging but also how it’s so mentally/athletically challenging.”

Murray said the PBR has created a western sport that fans can follow throughout the season.

“It felt like for so long that people outside of the small world of rodeo didn’t really have an understanding or appreciation for it,” Murray said. “They might have had somewhat of an appreciation almost like when you see a daredevil, but now I think people are starting to see that this is a legitimate sport with legitimate athletes doing amazing things.”

PBR UTB Update

Last weekend, the PBR’s Unleash the Beast tour stopped in Salt Lake City where Jose Vitor Leme, a Brazilian who lives in the Decatur area, clinched the title and earned $34,126.

With the title at stake in the final round, Leme turned in a remarkable score of 94 atop a bovine named Chiseled, which is owned by Flinn/D&H Cattle Company.

Leme will enter this weekend’s tour stop in Fort Worth ranked No. 1 in the PBR world standings with 994 points. Joao Ricardo Vieira, another Brazilian who lives in Decatur, is ranked No. 2 with 628.25.

The Fort Worth-based WinStar World Casino and Resort Invitational is scheduled for Saturday (6:45 p.m.) and Sunday (1:45 p.m.). The seating capacity at Dickies Arena normally is about 9,300 for a rodeo type of event. But this weekend, the PBR plans to sell only 3,700 tickets. Masks and social distancing will be required.

Tickets start at $15. For more information, visit pbr.com and Ticketmaster.com.

PRCA update

The PRCA announced last week on prorodeo.com and the Cowboy Channel that the association plans on conducting the 2020 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in December amid COVID-19 concerns. If the National Finals are held in Las Vegas, which has been the world’s top rodeo’s home since 1985, it must be a TV-only event.

PRCA CEO George Taylor said the association has an offer from the South Point Equestrian Center in Las Vegas to handle the 2020 NFR with no fans. But Taylor also said that officials will consider holding it in another city that will accommodate fans. Plans will be announced by Sept. 30.

This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Pro bull riding is finally back in Fort Worth. And this is not your daddy’s PBR.."