FORTH WORTH, Texas – A successful 8-second ride requires micro-second adjustments on an unpredictable bucking bull. There’s a game plan going in, but chaos reigns. The bull is in charge. Everyone else is along for the ride.
PBR’s television broadcasts follow the same principle. A group of seasoned professionals executes a carefully crafted plan interrupted by frequent audibles. The team seizes special moments, capitalizes on developing stories, and pivots to capture the drama that attracts fans to live sports. The goal is to grab a busy viewer’s interest, make them care, and win them over.
Last week, at the first phase of PBR World Finals at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, the on-the-dirt mayhem was displayed in a dizzying hodgepodge of images from the camera feeds on a gigantic screen inside the TV truck parked outside the birthplace of PBR. A red digital clock counting the 8 seconds that rule the sport jumped from the patchwork of boxes. In the back of the truck smaller rooms house other screens for engineering, replays, and the in arena-show, manned by technicians with hands spinning dials and pushing more buttons. A small audio room dominated by a mixing board is up front.
It's dark and cozy in the truck in a super nerdy way. The mass of electronic equipment runs hot. A constant wave of air conditioning blankets the long, narrow space. In every direction is a cacophony of cowboys and bulls.
If there were wings and beer on hand, this would be an unbelievable man cave.
Granted, this high-tech operation supports what is essentially a game. This ain’t air traffic control at Newark. But the men and women in the truck approach their jobs with high-stakes urgency because that ticking 8-second clock feels like an eternity compared to the relentless second-by-second judgements made over two intense hours of a live PBR broadcast.
The duo making the decisions for what fans at home see – Producer David Osborne, aka “Oz,” and Director Chris Taylor-Shaut, known as “T-Shot” – are former high school chums from Ohio positioned in padded chairs, wearing headsets to communicate with each other and the arena announcers.
To the left of Oz is Assistant Director Louise Story whose headset is a lifeline to the heads of the live event production inside the arena, Luke Kaufman and Bo Davis. In essence there are two shows produced from the truck – one for fans around the world and one in-arena seen on the jumbotrons wherever PBR travels.
Oz is described as the coach of the operation. He puts the game plan together – a 10-page run-of-show detailed in hundredths of seconds, which outlines the introduction, each rider out, prepackaged bits, sideline reporter slots, and sponsor plugs like the Progressive Fan Poll.
T-Shot, to the right of Oz, is akin to the team’s quarterback, calling the camera shots from a hodgepodge of feeds coming from dozens of cameras in the arena. The two are in blue jeans like just about everyone on the PBR crew. Others may wear cowboy hats; their headsets go over dark ball caps, looking like e-sports stars.
On the far right, sitting in front of a large board swathed with glowing buttons – lime, ice blue, red, yellow and purple – is Technical Director Kyle Jenisch. He punches in T-Shot’s shots along with hundreds of graphics produced in the truck – rider and bull scores, previous matchups, the changing event leaderboard, the world standings, and more.
To go along with the images beamed to audiences around the world, the narrative is supplied by the announcers in the arena: play-by-play man Craig Hummer, color commentators Cord McCoy (an effervescent former bull rider known to millions for appearances on “The Amazing Race”) and even-keeled 2016 PBR World Champion Cooper Davis, along with inquisitive sideline reporter Kate Harrison.
Bull riding is foreign to many. The stories the team attempts to relay are critical for getting viewers interested.
The structure of PBR – usually 40 rides a night, a singular man-versus-beast, lightweight taking on a heavyweight gladiator matchup – provides a challenge in telling each athlete’s story. In a sport like basketball, Lebron James may be on the court more than 40 minutes. The PBR team has less than two minutes per rider from the time they enter the bucking chute, take their ride, and exit the dirt.
“You have 90 seconds to tell a story and then you don’t see that rider again. The next ride is always looming,” said Executive Producer Cory Kelley.
A guiding influence for making the athletes’ stories compelling has been and continues to be David Neal, a mentor of Kelley’s who became Executive Producer of PBR broadcasts in 2011 when he left NBC to form his own production company.
Those unfamiliar with bull riding may assume the riders are like daredevil stuntmen, engaging in hold-my beer feats of daring do that may kill them but sure are entertaining to watch.
Already a sports TV legend, with 35 Emmy Awards on his mantle, Neal came on board and wanted to treat the cowboys like real athletes rather than daredevil stuntmen.
Taking over the PBR broadcasts, then on Outdoor Life Network (later known as Versus and then NBC Sports Network) and now carried by CBS and a host of streaming platforms, Neal immediately set a mandatory rule: No talking during the bull rides.
“The Chute opening for a bull rider is like waiting for the start of the 100-meter Men’s Final at the Olympics. You want the drama to settle in,” Neal said.
Bringing the drama to fans is a combination of images and voices. The legendary sports executive, who sits in the second row of the truck beside Kelley, believes PBR has one of the best on-air teams in the business.
“Cord knows the bulls inside out,” he said. “Cooper comes at it from the standpoint of a bull rider. They complement themselves perfectly. Craig is the consummate booth quarterback and set up man, directing the conversation with a great sense for the drama of the moment. Kate has a natural sense of curiosity, and she knows that great stories bring great athletes to life.”
Harrison specializes in sniffing out the brewing stories. Her instincts are essential to the broadcast, Neal says, and often lead it in a new direction.
That happened at last year’s World Finals, when Harrison went into the locker room for a predetermined athlete interview and heard 18-year-old phenom John Crimber gushing about hearing that his football idol Travis Hunter, the 2024 Heisman Trophy winner, was in the house. 
Harrison sensed TV gold. The break was short. There wasn’t much time. She patched in Oz and said, “I’m going to put something together. Let’s get two cameras ready. Just trust me.”
A well-oiled broadcast team is built on trust. Oz went with it.
Harrison got ahold of a PBR staffer to get Hunter over to the bucking chutes, but far enough away so Crimber wouldn’t see him. Meantime, she convinced Crimber she needed him for an interview and walked him across the arena, talking a mile a minute to distract the excitable young rider from spotting his hero.
Oz threw it to Kate, and during the “fake” interview, Hunter bounded into the picture, surprising Crimber, who was beside himself. When he knocked down a qualified ride, Crimber did a Heisman pose. Hummer called it Harrison’s best interview of the season.
Social media clips of the interview went viral, generating millions of views.
It was the kind of TV the PBR team strives to create on every broadcast.
“I’ve been in TV nearly 40 years, and one of the truisms that stays constant is to give the audience a reason to care,” Neal said. “That’s why we care so much about storytelling. We want to give the audience a reason to become attached to a rider or a bull. No matter who the person is, we want them to get engaged.”
This weekend, PBR World Finals – Championship will be held in AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The stadium’s sheer expanse, filled with 13 million pounds of dirt, means PBR will add 10 cameras, bringing the total to more than 30. To capture the denouement of a grueling season, the TV crew will nearly double to 80 people, according to Jim Palermo, Director of Remote Productions.
Palermo, who works with Shaunna Schmidt, SVP, Media for PBR, oversees all logistics of the traveling production setup, which includes one other truck. He calls them the “technology trucks” because they house timing and scoring, arena and television communications, networking, and the Internet for the entire live in-arena production.
On Sunday when a new champion is crowned, it will be the culmination of a feat of operational logistics and sheer cowboy endurance for PBR’s production team – an 11-day stretch producing 22 shows and more than 250 streams and broadcasts, across 10 broadcast and streaming platforms.
“I’m looking forward to when we can start drinking from the garden hose instead of the fire hose,” Palermo joked.
Fans can watch this weekend’s championship live and free on PBR’s app (available on web, mobile and on connected tv via Roku, Google TV, Fire TV and Apple TV), PBR’s YouTube, Facebook and X channels and on PBR's RidePass channel available on Pluto, Roku Channel, Fubo, Xumo Play, and FloSports.
PBR anticipates several million combined viewers, significantly more than the 40,000 who tuned to OLN and for the first time didn’t hear announcers speaking during the bull rides.
But a whole lot of talking will set up and break down this weekend’s outs, attempting to reveal something special about each human and bull athlete. Neal, who has produced nine Olympics, four NBA Finals, two World Series and a Super Bowl pregame show, still gets excited about those narratives as he again steps into the TV truck at AT&T Stadium.
“It’s the best in the world in this sport this weekend, and you always want to be at the top level and at the pinnacle of the sport, whether it’s the Olympic Games, the World Cup, the World Series, or the NBA Finals,” Neal said. “You want to be doing the games that involve the best players at the top of their game, and that's what you have here at the PBR World Finals. You bet I’m excited to be here.”
Photos courtesy of Andrew Giangola