PBR terminates contract with Dr. Phil’s Fort Worth media company after missed payments
.JPG "During the second round of the 2024 Unleash The Beast PBR World Finals Championship at AT&T Stadium.")
Fort Worth-based Merit Street Media allegedly failed to pay rights fees owed to the Professional Bull Riders organization, according to CEO Sean Gleason.
PBR, also based in Fort Worth, inked a four-year media rights partnership agreement with Dr. Phil’s Merit Street Media in May. The partnership, which began in July, said Merit Street would carry live PBR events and associated programming.
Now nearly six months later, PBR has parted ways with Merit Street for allegedly not paying rights fees owed.
“Unfortunately, just before the end of our first 13 weeks with them, [Merit Street Media] breached contract by failing to meet the rights payments obligations,” Gleason told The Star-Telegram. “We had to terminate.”
Fort Worth media company to defend against allegations
In response to the allegation, Merit Street Media sent a statement to the Star-Telegram explaining the company was “surprised” by the claims.
“Merit Street agreed to work out its differences with PBR in a confidential proceeding which is ongoing. We were therefore surprised that PBR would publicly accuse us of violating our agreement when the facts are in dispute. And we are astonished that PBR has demanded that its programming be immediately removed from our network while discussions are ongoing. Merit Street will vigorously defend itself in the proceedings.”
After giving Merit Street the requisite cure period and the company failing to cure, PBR had “no choice but to terminate,” Gleason said.
The bullriding organization couldn’t keep providing its content to the company, so it pulled the plug.
“It was a shock to us that we were in that position,” Gleason said.
According to PBR, its programming reached 2.4 million total unique viewers on Merit Street, which equates to around 31% of the network’s overall viewership. Nearly 1.2 million of those viewers came to Merit Street to exclusively watch PBR programming.
Now, PBR live events and other programming can be accessed for free via RidePass on Pluto TV, PBR’s YouTube channel, PBR’s mobile app, and PBR’s app on connected TVs such as Apple TV and Roku.
CBS remains PBR’s primary media partner and is under contract until 2030, Gleason said. CBS will air 10 of PBR’s upcoming “Unleash The Beast” events.
What’s next for Professional Bull Riders
Going forward, PBR plans to begin searching for a new media partner to complement CBS.
“Given our growing audience and the success of our business, I’m sure we’ll find somebody,” Gleason said.
Phil McGraw (Dr. Phil) announced Merit Street Media in late 2023 and the Fort Worth-based company launched in April 2024.
In August, the company laid off several staffers as part of “ongoing consolidations of departments and roles in efforts to achieve efficiencies at the highest level,” according to a statement sent by Merit Street to the Star-Telegram.
