ARLINGTON, Texas – The Carolina Cowboys made a landmark trade during the second round of the inaugural PBR (Professional Bull Riders) Team Series Draft, presented by ZipRecruiter, to welcome newly crowned PBR World Champion Daylon Swearingen (Piffard, New York) and rising star Mason Taylor (Maypearl, Texas) to the roster for North Carolina’s first-ever professional bull riding team.
Among eight teams, the Carolina Cowboys had the seventh pick in the first round of the draft and the second pick of the second round for the new bull riding league that begins competition in late July.
While the Carolina Cowboys initially drafted Cody Jesus (Window Rock, Arizona) and Joao Ricardo Vieira (Itatinga, Brazil) with their first two picks, they traded with the Texas Rattlers for Swearingen and Taylor, along with swapping picks in the third and fourth rounds of the Draft.
“It was exhilarating and exciting,” said Carolina Cowboys General Manager Austin Dillon. “All the work we put in leading up to the draft really paid off. I am pumped up and ready to get the season started. We’ve got a really good quality team.”
“It fell the way we really wanted it,” said Carolina Cowboys Head Coach Jerome Davis. “When the trade was available it was hard not to take the World Champion, especially with him being around the house so much. I really hated to let that team (of Vieira and Jesus) go, but Daylon, he is like family, and he is the reigning World Champ, and we had to take him.”
Throughout 2022, Swearingen went an impressive 26-for-60, covering 43.33% of his animal athlete opponents. He earned $1,697,481.63, including $1,394,000 for his career-first PBR World Championship and World Finals event win.
Along with being crowned the 2022 PBR World Champion, Swearingen concluded the Unleash The Beast season with a win at the 2022 PBR World Finals. Swearingen is now just the seventh rider to capture both honors in the same season.
The Carolina Cowboys also selected:
ROUND 2 (2nd of the Round, 10th overall) – Swearingen/Taylor (TRADE)
ROUND 3 (7th of the Round, 23rd overall) – Boudreaux Campbell (Crockett, Texas)
ROUND 4 (6th of the Round, 30th overall) – Ramon de Lima (Rio Branco, Brazil)
ROUND 5 (7th of the Round, 39th overall) – Cannon Cravens (Porum, Oklahoma)
2022 PBR Team Series Draft was held at Texas Live! in Arlington, Texas, a day after the 2022 PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast concluded at Dickies Arena in nearby Fort Worth.
The eight founding teams of the inaugural PBR Team Series – Austin Gamblers, Arizona Ridge Riders, Carolina Cowboys, Kansas City Outlaws, Missouri Thunder, Nashville Stampede, Oklahoma Freedom, and Texas Rattlers – participated in an initial 5-round draft, beginning the process of selecting which riders will be competing on their respective teams when the season begins on July 25-26 at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
All PBR riders in good standing with the league were eligible for the 2022 PBR Team Series Draft as long as they declared by May 6, 2022. Riders who declared for fewer than 10 events are eligible for a two-round supplemental draft on June 2.
In tonight’s initial draft, teams were eligible to select up to five riders, unless they traded a draft pick. The June 2 supplemental draft, comprised of riders declaring availability for fewer than 10 regular season events (but no fewer than 5 regular season events), will help teams fill seven protected roster positions.
When they begin their 10-event regular season, culminating in a Teams Championship in Las Vegas November 4-6, teams will have ten riders in total, including 7 “Protected Roster” riders and 3 “Practice Squad” developmental riders.
The bull riding games that make up the 11-event season will feature five-on-five, head-to-head competition between two teams. Each regular-season event day will feature all teams in a game.
The inaugural draft order was determined by a lottery held on Jan. 7 in New York City.
Prior to the lottery draw, the PBR issued Draft guidelines that specified the two PBR-owned teams (Carolina Cowboys and Oklahoma Freedom) would select in the last two positions in the draft order, and, further, that the draft would be conducted in a “snake” format in which the first team to select in Round 1 would receive the last pick in Round 2 (i.e., Pick 16), the first pick in Round 3 (i.e., Pick 17), and so forth.
In addition to drafting riders this week, the Carolina Cowboys announced two key partners, Bobcat Company and Rank 45.
“Professional bull riders are considered some of the toughest athletes in the world, and we know members of the Carolina Cowboys strive to achieve more and are dedicated to performance and hard work – just like Bobcat,” said Laura Ness Owens, vice president of global brand and North America marketing at Bobcat Company. “This relationship with the PBR presents a new way for us to build greater awareness of the Bobcat brand, while also showing support for some talented, tough athletes in a sport that connects with many of our customers.”
“We are thrilled to start this new partnership with the Carolina Cowboys,” says Tye Romano, Director of New Stores and Events Performance at Boot Barn. “Rank 45 is a rodeo brand made for extremes. It is a brand that embodies the athlete’s attitude; a brand that is ready to compete and born to win. This makes Rank 45 the perfect partner for the Carolina Cowboys and the team’s coach, PRCA World Champion and Bull Riders Ring of Honor recipient, Jerome Davis, who we have a longstanding relationship with. It is an honor for us to join the inaugural PBR team series and to contribute even further to the toughest sport on dirt.”
The Carolina Cowboys will host its inaugural homestand on Sept. 9-11 at LJVM Coliseum.
For more information on Carolina Cowboys, visit https://pbr.com/teams/cowboys/, Carolina Cowboys on Facebook, @carolinacowboyspbr on Instagram, or @CARCowboysPBR on Twitter.