AUSTIN, Texas – PBR (Professional Bull Riders) announced today that the Austin Gamblers will represent Texas’ capital city in the PBR Team Series, an elite new league featuring the world’s top bull riders competing in games beginning in June 2022.

The Austin Gamblers, owned by Egon Durban, will be the first professional sports team to host an event at the new state-of-the-art, multi-purpose venue, Moody Center, which is set to open in April.

Durban, the team’s owner, is Co-CEO of Silver Lake, the global leader in technology investing. Silver Lake’s investment portfolio includes ownership in Endeavor (PBR’s parent company) and City Football Group (owner of the Manchester City Football Club and New York City FC MLS club), among others. 

The PBR Team Series’ inaugural 10-event regular season will culminate in a team playoff at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas November 4-6, 2022. The league will launch with eight founding teams, each scheduled to host in their respective city an annual bull riding event and western lifestyle festival, building excitement and rooting interests in the sport.

The PBR Team Series 2022 event for the Austin Gamblers at Moody Center will be announced at a later date. Fans can connect with the Austin Gamblers on social media at @AustinGamblers on Facebook, @Austin_Gamblers on Twitter, @Austin_Gamblers on Instagram, and @Austin_Gamblers on TikTok.

“I am honored and grateful to have the opportunity to help bring the excitement of an innovative team series to fans of bull riding everywhere, and especially proud of the partnership the Austin Gamblers are building with professional riders and their fans and sponsors in the Austin area and across the country,” said Durban. “The determination, grit and focus of professional bull riding provides authentic and dramatic sports entertainment, and I look forward to helping this premier team build on all the sport offers.”

The full PBR Team Series league roster is:

• Ariat Texas Rattlers, based in Fort Worth, Tex. and owned by the Fisher family
• Arizona Ridge Riders, based in Glendale, Ariz. and owned by Teton Ridge
• Austin Gamblers, based in Austin, Tex. and owned by Egon Durban
• Carolina Chaos, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., owned by the league and operated by Richard Childress Racing
• Kansas City Outlaws, based in Kansas City, Mo. and owned by Pulley Outlaws LLC.
• Missouri Thunder, based in Ridgedale, Mo. and owned by Johnny Morris
• Nashville Stampede, based in Nashville, Tenn. and owned by Morris Communications Company
• Oklahoma Freedom, based in Oklahoma City, Okla. owned by the league and operated by Prodigal

There will also be two “neutral site” league-produced regular season events along with the season playoff and championship. All PBR Team Series events will be carried on either the CBS Television Network, streamed live on Paramount+, CBS Sports Network or Pluto TV.  

Before the start of the 2022 season, the league will host a PBR Team Series rider draft on Monday, May 23, among PBR rider members who have declared for the draft during the league’s eligibility window. To determine team selection order of the athletes, a draft lottery among teams will be held prior to the PBR Unleash The Beast event at Madison Square Garden in New York on Friday, January 7.

The PBR Team Series complements the successful PBR Unleash The Beast premier tour, which held its first championship in 1994 and in 2022 will be staged January – May, with its World Finals held in Fort Worth, Tex. from May 13-22, 2022.

The foundation of the Austin Gamblers is the latest expansion for the world’s leading professional bull riding organization in Texas, where PBR has held several Global Cup events and the 2020 World Finals. The Austin Gamblers is one of two teams that will represent the Lone Star State in the new league, with the Ariat Texas Rattlers based in Fort Worth at Dickies Arena.

The PBR’s elite Unleash The Beast debuted in Austin in 2017, making an additional trip to the city in 2018. The inaugural event was won by Jess Lockwood in his record-setting season which concluded with him being crowned the youngest World Champion in PBR history at the age of 20, while the 2018 tour stop was won by Brazilian sensation Luciano de Castro.

“Over the past 29 years, PBR has grown to become a mainstream sport carried by CBS and Pluto TV and packing marquee arenas across the country,” said PBR CEO and Commissioner Sean Gleason. “The incredible lineup of passionate, highly successful team owners validates the new PBR Team Series league – a transformational addition to the sport that will help take PBR to new levels.”

The PBR Team Series builds on the existing structure of professional bull riding with the same basic rules for judging and scoring qualified 8-second bull rides. Events will be structured in a tournament-style format with all teams competing in head-to-head matchups against a different opponent each day. Each game will feature five riders per team squaring off against another team. The team with the highest aggregate score of qualified rides among its riders will be declared the winner of each game. The event winner will be the team with the most game wins across an event, with a special bonus round designed as a tie-breaker to determine final event standings.

Team formatted bull-riding events have been growing in popularity since the debut of the PBR Global Cup in 2017, which pitted nation against nation in the name of national pride. The successful event format continued in June and July with the PBR Monster Energy Team Challenge, presented by U.S. Border Patrol.  In addition, PBR has staged multiple Air Force Reserve Cowboys for a Cause team charity events.

About Egon Durban:

Egon Durban joined Silver Lake in 1999 as a founding principal and is Co-CEO. He serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Endeavor Group Holdings. He also serves on the board of directors of City Football Group, Dell Technologies, Group 42, Learfield, Motorola Solutions, Qualtrics, Twitter, Unity Software, Verily, VMware and Waymo. Previously, he served on the board of MultiPlan, Pivotal Software, SecureWorks, UFC, and Skype, where he was Chairman of the operating committee, and served on the supervisory board and operating committee of NXP. Mr. Durban currently serves on the Business Council and Business Roundtable. Prior to Silver Lake, he worked in Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Division. Mr. Durban graduated from Georgetown University with a B.S.B.A. in Finance.

About Moody Center:

Moody Center will provide the nation’s 11th largest city with a premier venue to host the biggest artists and acts on the planet. Designed specifically for concerts, the new arena will replace the 43-year-old Frank C. Erwin Jr. Center at The University of Texas and will be home to The University of Texas Women’s and Men’s basketball games, family shows, and other sporting and community events. Moody Center is the first of its kind in the industry with an unrivaled partnership between Oak View Group, Live Nation/C3 Presents, The University of Texas at Austin and Minister of Culture Matthew McConaughey. Moody Center is set to open in April of 2022.