How Fort Worth lured the Super Bowl of bull riding, and what it expects to do next
Mayor Mattie Parker had a simple pitch for the Professional Bull Riders: In Las Vegas, the World Finals were an event among many, but in Fort Worth they will get top billing.
“They’ll be showcased in a different way, more Fort Worthians will be excited and know about it and it’s a huge boom for our small businesses across the city,” Parker said.
The Professional Bull Riders announced Tuesday that its World Finals would move to Dickies Arena in Fort Worth in 2022. The seven-day event is the most competitive in bull riding.
Mitch Whitten, chief operating officer of Visit Fort Worth, said it is too early to know the economic impact the World Finals will have on Fort Worth, but the 2019 event in Las Vegas generated $28 million and attracted more than 70,000 visitors. Last year, AT&T Stadium hosted the PBR finals and the National Finals Rodeo because of COVID restrictions in Las Vegas.
Sporting events generated $100 million in Fort Worth in the past year, Parker said, citing a statistic from the Fort Worth Sports Commission. She said events like the PBR World Finals give Fort Worth an edge in its competition with other major metropolitan areas for professional talent and business investment.
Dickies Arena hosted the U.S. Olympic wrestling trials in April, the U.S. Gymnastics Championships in June and will be the site of first- and second-round games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in March.
Jason Sands, executive director of the Sports Commission, noted that the events in the city amounted to 155 hours of TV broadcast exposure.
“It’s a great platform for our city to tell our story,” Sands said. In addition to the broadcast exposure, Sands said the NFR, Gymnastics Championships and other events brought in thousands of visitors, which gave a boost to businesses struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So we’re utilizing visitors and other people’s money to be able to keep our restaurants busy, and our hotels busy and bring people back to work,” Sands said.
Events like the PBR World Finals offer the city an opportunity to hook visitors on all the things that make Fort Worth special, said Visit Fort Worth president and CEO Bob Jameson.
“It’s a noisy marketplace,” he said. “So the degree that you can find ways to continue to shine a light on the community, in ways that engage people’s imagination, suggests that there is a vibe, that there’s an energy, that there is something happening here worth visiting.”
Sands added that these spectator events are a boon to the city’s larger efforts surrounding youth sports. He pointed to a proposed tournament-quality soccer complex expected to attract 50,000 visitors and bring in an estimated $16 million annually in revenue.
“These high profile events require the entire city pulling in the same direction,” Sands said. “Each event that we host at this level we’re able to enhance that infrastructure, build off that infrastructure, and continue to build this well- oiled machine that we’re able to activate around big events like this.”
Sands said investments in sports tourism and youth sports facilities will improve the quality of life in Fort Worth. The lack of adequate outdoor sporting facilities forces some youth athletes to travel long distances to fields in the eastern part of the Metroplex.
“The kids that can’t afford to pay the big club fees, or have parents that are able to drive two hours for practices during the week or on the weekends for tournaments and leagues, those kids are getting left behind,” Sands said.
This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 5:30 AM.