Things are looking a little different in the RidePass universe these days! As of midnight ET, the PBR’s signature streaming service is now available exclusively on Pluto TV – for free.
The first marquee rodeo to be carried live on Pluto TV is the Days of ‘47 Cowboy Games and Rodeo on July 20-24 from Utah Fair State Park in Salt Lake City, with all five rounds of competition free on Pluto TV.
Each performance will stream live at 9:30 p.m. ET, beginning with Perf 1 on Tuesday and culminating with the Gold Medal Rounds on Saturday. Tie-down roper Riley Webb will look to make history as the first athlete to win the WCRA’s Triple Crown of Rodeo and put himself in line for the WCRA’s annual $1 million bonus – making him the youngest millionaire in rodeo history. Michelle Darling and Martini take aim at the gold medal in barrel racing, while the bull riding field contains such familiar faces as Keyshawn Whitehorse, Derek Kolbaba, Cooper Davis and Joao Ricardo Vieira.
Don’t miss a second of the action!
What else to watch this week
Tuesday, 7/20: With Days of ’47 kicking off at 9:30 p.m. ET, whet your rodeo appetite beforehand! Tune in at 6 p.m. for Days of ’47 highlights from 2018 (featuring gold medalist Derek Kolbaba), at 7 p.m. for highlights from 2019 (bronze medalist Keyshawn Whitehorse), and at 8:15 for highlights from this year’s Corpus Christi Rodeo.
Wednesday, 7/21: Looking to relive some Unleash The Beast action from this season? You’re in luck – there’s plenty of action from the first half of the 2021 season to be found, including the 15/15 Bucking Battle in Okeechobee, Florida, at 5:15 p.m. ET. Four 90-point rides. World Champions Kaique Pacheco and Cooper Davis were good, but Marco Eguchi was better. It’s a good time.
Thursday, 7/22: For the early birds, from 6-8 a.m. ET, tune in for four episodes of Heroes & Legends of the PBR. Bull Week is coming up fast, so now’s the perfect time to brush up on your knowledge of such bovine superstars as Little Yellow Jacket, Red Wolf, Blueberry Wine and Dillinger. (And then, if you’re feeling adventurous, keep watching for five hours of premier series events from 1995. 1995! If you’re looking to watch guys like Jim Sharp, Gilbert Carrillo, Cody Lambert, Tuff Hedeman, Michael Gaffney and Jerome Davis in their prime, look no further. We’ll bring the popcorn.)
Friday, 7/23: At 7:30 a.m. ET, the 2021 Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo takes the stage. The BPIR is a historic all-Black rodeo that has been running since 1984, and, in June, it became the first all-Black rodeo to be televised nationwide when it aired on Juneteenth. Don’t miss your chance to watch (or re-watch) this incredible slice of history!
Saturday, 7/24: You already know that the Days of ’47 Cowboy Games and Rodeo will be airing live on RidePass on Pluto TV each night this week at 9:30 p.m. ET. But just in case you miss any of it, catch it during this full day of replays from Salt Lake City beginning at 8:30 a.m. with Perf 1. The replays run until 9:30 p.m., when the Finals air live. You were looking for weekend plans, right?
Sunday, 7/25: The Unleash The Beast may not resume until July 26-27 with Last Cowboy Standing in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour keeps rolling this weekend with the Bangor Classic in Bangor, Maine. Tune in from 2-4:45 p.m. ET to see what goes down as the second half of the season is about to gear up.
In case you missed it…
In a historic move, PBR and Pluto TV announced a new multifaceted partnership that begins with bringing RidePass to a new arena. As of today, RidePass will stream exclusively on Pluto TV as both a linear channel and on-demand, featuring hundreds of hours of live professional bull riding, rodeo, other western sporting events, and more.
This marks a transition from RidePass’s origin as a subscription-based streaming service to an ad-supported streaming channel – and, yes, it’s free.
“This new relationship with Pluto TV allows PBR to super-serve fans with hundreds of events and thousands of hours of great western sports programming now available for free,” said Sean Gleason, Commissioner and CEO, PBR. “With PBR’s linear and streaming live event content all within the ViacomCBS family through CBS and Pluto TV, we will benefit from tremendous synergies to grow this first-of-its-kind sports network.”
Still have questions? Learn more about Pluto TV here, and check out our PBR RidePass on Pluto TV FAQ page here.
What’s everybody saying?
Variety broke the news last week.
The Hollywood Reporter compared the move to similar ones by the WWE and NHL.
“With PBR’s streaming and broadcast rights under one umbrella, the two channels will promote one another,” notes Covering the Ride, “which is something that doesn’t happen when a sport’s league’s rights are separated among different competing companies.”
Looking for more Western sports content on Pluto TV? nScreenMedia lists some other Pluto TV channels you should check out.
