Professional Bull Riders announced Thursday a slate of teams in cities across the U.S. that will compete in a first-of-its-kind season in June.
PBR’s Team Series features eight teams — the Ariat Texas Rattlers in Fort Worth, Texas; the Arizona Ridge Riders in Glendale, Arizona; the Austin Gamblers in Austin, Texas; the Carolina Chaos in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; the Kansas City Outlaws in Kansas City, Missouri; the Missouri Thunder in Ridgedale, Missouri; the Nashville Stampede in Nashville, Tennessee; and the Oklahoma Freedom in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, according to the press release. A team playoff is scheduled for November, the release stated.
Billionaires have invested funds into the new team competition amid the success of the hit Paramount show, “Yellowstone,” The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. In 2015, the talent agency Endeavor Group Holdings acquired PBR, according to The WSJ. The $100-million purchase was designed to help expand Endeavor’s representation beyond actors and celebrities, the outlet reported.
Endeavor officials noted “Yellowstone,” which just finished its fourth season, has helped glamorize the sport of bull-riding. Endeavor President Mark Shapiro said that the Hollywood show is “exposing Western lifestyle, Main Street U.S.A. to big city Manhattan,” according to The WSJ.(RELATED: ‘Yellowstone’ Season 4 Finale Gets Monster TV Ratings, Is The Most Watched Episode Of Cable TV Since 2017)
“There’s a reason the most successful sports teams in the world represent a city. They have a culture, rivalries,” said Pittsburgh Steelers part-owner Thomas Tull, whose company, Teton Ridge, owns the new Arizona Ridge Riders bull-riding team, according to The WSJ.
PBR has hosted events almost every weekend since July 2020, following a 4-moth hiatus starting in March of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The WSJ reported.