PUEBLO, Colo. – It had been 12 years since two-time World Champion Justin McBride retired from the sport of professional bull riding when he turned left out of the Team USA locker room and led his team down the hallway of AT&T Stadium this past February.
The head coach of Team USA can still recall the sense of anticipation and excitement pulsating throughout his body on that winter Championship Sunday in Texas. While it is different being a coach vs. a bull rider, those emotions certainly were comparable to what he felt walking down the Hall of Champions inside the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas when he was in the hunt for multiple gold buckles as a rider.
“At Global Cup, I was not riding or anything, I was just a part of it with those guys, but I still got fired up walking down there,” McBride said.
PBR CEO Sean Gleason announced Thursday that the 2020 PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast will be moving from Las Vegas to the home of the Dallas Cowboys, and will take place on Nov. 12-15.
McBride believes AT&T Stadium will be a perfect host for the PBR’s culminating event of the season.
“I definitely think there will be that feeling for the guys, that this isn’t a normal type of event kind of feeling,” McBride said. “When you walk into that building, you get a different type of feeling. We have had two Global Cups there, and there is a reason we have had them there, and that is because it is freaking awesome. It is a great venue. There is not much else that compares to it.
“For the guys, it will hold a lot of prestige for them, and it will be a big deal for them to get to ride there again. When you start walking down that tunnel into that place, you go, ‘Yeah man, this is what it is supposed to be like.’”
McBride led his Team USA squad to a Global Cup victory inside AT&T Stadium this past February. It was the first time in PBR history that a World Cup or Global Cup host country won the international battle for bull riding supremacy on its home soil.
Now AT&T Stadium will host another historical PBR event in in less than two months. This year will be the first time in the PBR’s 27-year history that Las Vegas will not be welcoming the PBR and its fan base for the World Finals. The PBR worked extensively to attempt to find a way to host the event with fans in Vegas, but there are currently COVID-19 restrictions in the state of Nevada.
Therefore, the PBR will take the Finals to Arlington and AT&T Stadium.
“The PBR World Finals, the biggest event in bull riding, will crown our next champion rider and bull in the NFL’s largest stadium in the heart of cowboy country, giving fans the sport they love in a comfortable, socially distanced environment,” Gleason said. “We are very grateful to Governor Abbott and the state of Texas, who moved at lightning speed to make this happen, as well as our partners in the city of Arlington, the Visitors Bureau, and AT&T Stadium for welcoming PBR and our loyal fans for championship week.”
The NFL stadium is one of the best venues on the PBR tour calendar annually. The PBR has been holding events in the state-of-the-art venue since 2010. Iron Cowboy was held there from 2010-2018 before the PBR Global Cup USA took place at AT&T Stadium the past two years.
Arlington was also the first city to host a PBR Major with the 2015 Iron Cowboy.
However, since Iron Cowboy moved to Los Angeles, that has led to fewer riders having the opportunity to compete in Arlington. There are 12 riders in the Top 40 of the world standings that have never had the opportunity to compete in AT&T Stadium.
“This is an awesome place, obviously,” McBride said. “It is as nice of a place you could ever want to be in. I am in the boat of, whatever it takes to have a Finals, I am thankful for. If it is in Arlington, then I am thankful for Arlington because it has been such a crazy year. There was a real good shot when this all started that we weren’t going to be able to have a season, a Finals or anything. I am just thankful the guys are getting to have a season.”
The inaugural PBR World Finals was held at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas in 1994. The Thomas & Mack Center was then the host arena from 1999-2015. The PBR recently moved its World Finals to the brand new and state-of-the-art T-Mobile Arena four years ago. While the nostalgia will be lost in ways without being in Las Vegas, the 2020 PBR World Finals will be a unique and memorable experience for 40 of the top bull riders in the world and the PBR’s dedicated fan base.
Aspiring bull riders look forward to riding in Las Vegas at the PBR World Finals or the NFR, but 2020 has been far from normal circumstances for anyone, and the opportunity for Western sports to finish off their seasons somehow and some way is truly what matters, says McBride.
“Myself growing up as a little kid, you go to the National Finals Rodeo as a kid, and then in high school the PBR started going, and that is where you always feel like you go, to Vegas, for the Finals,” McBride said. “So it is a little weird it not being in Vegas this year, but, again, I don’t even care.
“I am just glad for those guys that rodeo that they are going to have an NFR, and I am glad we are having the PBR Finals. I know there was a very close possibility that none of it got to happen.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media