PUEBLO, Colo. – One side of the PBR that most fans don’t get to see is all the hours on the road.
Every weekend for months on end, riders, entertainers, TV talent, production crew, staff, and anyone else involved with putting on events travel to a new city. For several days, you travel together, eat together, hang out together, work together, and then do it all over again.
It’s an environment that turns friends and coworkers into family, and it’s where arena announcer Matt West and PBR exclusive entertainer Flint Rasmussen forged their relationship.
The two met when West attended his first PBR event in 2005, exchanging pleasantries in passing. When West announced his first premier series event in 2007, the man in the makeup immediately put him at ease.
“I just remember being nervous, like so incredibly nervous, just to be at that event, and then to be working with guys that were my heroes,” West said. “And I just remember how easy Flint and Brandon (Bates) made it for me to adjust, adapt, and feel like I was part of the team. And they’ll never understand how important that was to me, because for me, it was the biggest thing I had ever done, and they made me feel like I belonged there, which not everybody does. But Flint definitely helped make that happen.”
RELATED: PBR official entertainer Flint Rasmussen to leave the dirt at end of 2023 Unleash The Beast season, joining PBR’s television broadcast
West worked PBR events for the next few years. Rasmussen was always around to offer a friendly ear and professional advice, which West says was incredibly helpful to a budding announcer. West joined the team full-time with PBR Live/RidePass in 2015.
“Since like 2015, full-time, I’ve been here every week with the guy,” West joked. “Think about that. In all honesty, it’s like we really do spend more time (together) than most people spend with their spouses. Because you go home, and everybody has their life at home. You reset and are back on the road. Even when you’re home with your spouse, it’s kind of intermittent whether you’re together all day. You probably don’t spend all day together. Well, we kind of do on the road, as crazy as it is.”
As the years passed, West and Rasmussen formed a bond that goes far beyond the work they do in the arena each night.
“He’s one of my best friends,” West said. “Like, legitimately family. Everybody sees the good inside the arena, but we still have real life. We still deal with real-life situations just like everybody else. And I look at Flint more now as a guy that has become a brother. Yeah, we talk about the good things, but we can talk about the bad things. I can go to him for help, and vice versa. If we’re having a bad day, I know I can call him at any time and count on him. So what started as me being a fan turned into a working relationship, and now it’s turned into family. We really lean on each other more than I think people realize outside of the arena.”
After several years working as a host on RidePass, West has transitioned back into his old role as in-arena announcer. It means he’s gotten to work more closely with Rasmussen, their friendship and easy rapport often taking center stage during events as they play off each other to entertain the crowd.
West says one of the best parts of his job is being able to show up to work without a plan.
“People ask all the time if things are scripted. No!” he said. “You get to a point where you know each other’s habits, you know each other’s tendencies, you kind of know what the other person’s thinking, and we feed off that. And that’s what makes it fun, and when you can get that person to really, genuinely laugh and have fun, then you know you’re doing something right. He has this uncanny ability to do that every single weekend. Us that are around him every single week, he still has an uncanny ability to entertain us. And I think that says a lot about what he’s done in his career for fans across the world, because if we see him every weekend and he still makes us laugh and puts a smile on our face, that’s a testament to how good a guy is at his craft. And he’s the best ever.”
Indeed, Rasmussen revolutionized the role of a rodeo entertainer, changing the game for everyone in the industry moving forward.
“He was 100% authentically him in his approach and everything that he did for this business, to the point where everyone started trying to emulate him,” West said. “Everybody in this industry wanted to be Flint. What’s the old saying – imitation is the best form of flattery? You could say that about everybody that followed him in this industry in some capacity. A lot of people have made a really good living trying to copy him, but nobody will ever be able to do what he’s done for other people in this industry.
“And that’s the thing – at the end of the day, he set the standard, but he also helped everyone behind him. As much as he is going to make it difficult for the guys behind him, he’s also opened up so many doors and made people realize what’s possible. So I think, in that sense, he’s helped everybody behind him more than they realize.”
With Rasmussen retiring following the 2023 PBR World Finals on May 12-21 in Fort Worth, Texas, he will be leaving some big cleats to fill in the arena and outside of it.
West says that his most cherished memories with his friend are the quiet moments in the locker room, debriefing after shows or simply talking about life, and stresses that, as much as Flint is loved by the fans, he’s loved even more within the walls of the locker room.
“He’s become that person on the road for me that, no matter what the situation is, high, low, in between, good, bad, indifferent, he’s the guy that I can go to to talk,” West said. “Everybody jokes about having a safe space, but we have that. It’s a bond that I don’t know that people truly understand, and that comes from being a genuine human being. If you don’t have that genuine heart and love of people, then those kinships never happen, and he definitely has that. People see the funny, witty, entertaining side of him. What I wish more people could see is how genuine, how kind-hearted, how loving of a human being he is. Because he really is. He’s as good of a human being as I know.”
Photos courtesy of Bull Stock Media
