PUEBLO, Colo. – When Tina Battock first went to college at the University of Colorado in Boulder, she thought she was going to be a psychologist.

But she quickly realized psychology involved a lot of schooling and academia, so she followed her curious nature into a journalism major and marketing minor.

“I wanted to do things,” Battock said, “and I wasn’t patient enough to do all of the schooling that was required to be the kind of professional I wanted to be. I really was eager to get into the action.”

Several decades later, as the General Manager of the PBR Team Series’ Nashville Stampede, Battock is most certainly doing things.

Battock admittedly never thought she would be the GM of a sports team. After graduating college, she got a job with an ad agency as a media buyer before transitioning to the client side and working for a publishing company. She’s been in the publishing and media world ever since, focusing on special interest media and launching a number of businesses.

“My first magazines were quilting,” Battock said. “Quilting and knitting and scrapbooking and astronomy and woodworking, shooting, hunting, fishing. I’ve covered the bingo card pretty well with hobbyists. But anything people are into, there’s media that serves them, whether it be magazines or television, so we’ve done most of it.”

Western sports, however, were not on her radar until coming into Morris Communications as a consultant for their magazine group in 2014. A large part of the Morris Communications publishing portfolio is a Western group based in Fort Worth, Texas, which includes the iconic brand of Western Horseman.

It’s through these Western brands that Battock was connected with the PBR. She developed a working relationship with Chad Blankenship, PBR’s Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategy, who first floated the idea of the PBR Team Series and franchise ownership to her.

Battock set up a meeting with PBR CEO Sean Gleason and Tyler Morris, Vice President of Morris Communications’ Cowboy Publishing Group.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Morris family owns the Nashville Stampede and installed Battock as their General Manager.

“I was really excited about it from the get-go, just because I’ve always admired PBR’s ability to produce big things and make a lot of noise and attract fans and put on really top-shelf events,” Battock said. “So for us, the opportunity to align all of our brands and our company with PBR felt like a really good move forward, not just because of the opportunity by itself, but because of what it would do for Western lifestyle in creating some new connections between our audience and bull riding. We already have a built-in audience and a built-in affinity group, so just adding one more thing that they could enjoy felt like a no-brainer.”

Battock feels fortunate to have grown up in a sports-heavy environment, surrounded by athletes and sports fans alike, so she was familiar with the dynamic she was getting into. Besides learning the ins and outs of bull riding, her business acumen has carried her forward.

“If you’ve got a certain set of management skills and you just apply them in a different environment, they’re all the same, really,” Battock said. “You learn how to work with people and get deals done, and make things happen, and follow through with your commitments, and try to be smart about the decisions you make. And a big part of that is surrounding yourself with people that are really good and/or the experts in the things you need them to be experts in. So that’s probably the most important part of my job, is just making sure we build the right team, front and back of the office. And that’s just business.”

Battock also happens to be the only female GM among the eight founding teams of the PBR Team Series (the Carolina Cowboys have a female assistant GM in Tiffany Davis). It makes her one of the few women in positions of power in a very male-dominated sport – and men will occasionally end an aggressive interaction with, ‘Sorry, ma’am’ – but she says it’s not something she pays much attention to.

If anything, it works in her favor.

“I certainly didn’t set out to be the best female anything,” Battock said. “What I’m trying to be is the best GM, and I want to build the best team. I don’t want to be the best female GM or have the best female-run team. I want it to be the best, period. Other people look at it as a difference, and I look at it as a little bit of an advantage because, honestly, because it has been such a male-dominated space, they don’t know exactly how to take me in some situations, and I’m smart enough and experienced enough to use that to my advantage when it makes sense.

“If the people that are coming up with me, other women that are coming up, look at that as something that helps motivate them and see it as an opportunity for them, that makes me really happy.”

Building a team and a league from the ground up has been a lot of work – Battock jokes that this is her side gig, as she still has her day job – but she says that working on something you’re excited about is passion.

Moving forward, Battock is focusing on improving the team product and creating the most competitive team possible, doing the foundational work to set the stage for the future, and constantly improving how the league functions.

It’s a far cry from a quilting magazine.

“When I look at the arc of my career, I’m like, ‘Well, this is random,’” Battock said with a laugh. “I joke about sort of how I ended up here. And it’s like, you know what? Believe in what you can do. Look at what you offer and how you can apply that to any situation. And say yes to things. Say yes and figure it out. The fun is in the figuring it out, and you can look back on things and say, ‘Wow, we pulled that off.’ So it’s pretty fun. But I think being open to things and really saying yes has brought me to this place.

“It’s been amazing, and I just feel really lucky that I’m in this position and get to do something that’s so cool, really. There’s no other way to say it. It’s really cool.”

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media