The sixth annual PBR Madison Square Garden Invitational in New York City, 2012. (Photo by Madison Square Garden)
It can only mean one thing when 16,000 New Yorkers are seen headed to Madison Square Garden in their cowboy boots: Professional Bull Riders is in town. This year, the 2013 Built Ford Tough season kicked off at MSG Jan. 4-6, bringing 43,000 fans to the building. The event served as the start to a successful PBR season.
Though PBR was founded in 1992, 2013 will mark the 20th year that the PBR World Finals have been held in Las Vegas.
“More mainstream markets have been very good for us, which is kind of exciting,” said Professional Bull Riders CEO Jim Haworth, who came on board May 2012. “But we’ll continue to make sure we’re bringing great bull riding to all of our fans.”
He said that per caps for merchandise are up across the board, with a popular item being the 20th anniversary T-shirt. In addition to strong merchandise sales, sponsorship has grown. Not only has overall sponsorship improved, also the rate at which sponsors are renewing.
“We had about 85 percent of our sponsors in a renewal period last year,” said Haworth. “I’m knocking on wood, because we got 96 percent of them back to continue to support the PBR.”
Ford continues to be the title sponsor of the Built Ford Tough series.
So far, dates at Madison Square Garden, AllState Arena in Rosemont, Ill., Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, Calif., Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., and Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., have broken attendance records for PBR events at the buildings.
Chesapeake Energy Arena’s Jan. 25-27 PBR event in Oklahoma City sold 11,640 tickets for a gross of more than $600,000.
Rider Shane Proctor hangs on at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City. (Photo by PBR)
The Feb. 8-10 LiftMaster Invitational event at Honda Center brought 30,000 fans to the building. JoAnn Armstrong, the building’s director of Booking, said that PBR has had an event there for about 15 years. She added that bulls are a novel sight in Orange County, making for a unique event.
The AllState Arena stop Jan. 12-13 was the first time the PBR was at the building since 2011. Over the two days of the Built Ford Tough Series PBR event, 17,300 fans came to the building.
PBR uses some complex calculations to help decide routing.
“We did a fan segmentation study two years ago to look at our fan base and where we specifically know that our fans have a higher propensity to watch bull riding,” said Haworth. “Also, some sponsors want us to be in certain markets, so we take that information and overlay it with financial performance, and go back and decide what venues should have our bull riding.”
“Sometimes, between moving from one event to the other and all the things that we’re working on, you just can’t make it back to every venue every year,” Haworth added.
One new building on the circuit is KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky.
“It’s actually the first time we’ve brought dirt into the building,” said Marketing Manager Sandra Kendall. The building has been open since October 2010, but switched to AEG management (replacing Kentucky State Fair Board) July 2012.
The April 13-14 event will mark the first time PBR’s Built Ford Tough series has come to Louisville in 11 years.
Kendall said that bringing dirt into the building for the first time shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge, as many of the staff come from buildings that have hosted dirt events.
“Plus, our event coordinators reach out to other venues and the PBR tour offers a lot of guidance,” she added.
Guidance is important for events that require this much time and dirt. Budweiser Gardens in London, Ontario, hosted PBR in 2012. Chris Campbell, director of Marketing at Budweiser Gardens, said a full PBR conversion takes about 235 man-hours.
He added that Professional Bull Riders events always bring a diverse crowd.
“We see everyone from farmers and fans from the outlying towns to city folks, from young adults to families looking for an evening of fun and excitement,” said Campbell.
Interviewed for this story: JoAnn Armstrong, (714) 704-2422; Chris Campbell, (519) 667-5733; Jim Haworth, (718) 317-8745; Sandra Kendall, (502) 690-9000