Longhorn Championship Rodeo Tickets

The beginning of the Longhorn Championship Rodeo can be traced back to the late 1800's, Richard Rattenbury says, keeper of the Longhorn Championship Rodeo at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma. Cowboys held informal contests of steer roping or saddle bronc riding to show off skills mastered on the job - except bull riding, which was added later as a spectator sport. "Bull riding has no cultural roots in the romantic West, cowboys never did that," says Mr. Rattenbury. Yet the spectacle view of men in chaps riding a raging beast has always been among the biggest draws. And for the past 15 years, it has quickly outgrown the bounds of a featured event at the Longhorn Championship Rodeo also Longhorn Championship Rodeo Tickets are available. To a certain that in 1992, 20 of the nation's most skillful and top bull riders decided to turn their sport into a solo event, investing $1,000 each to form the Professional Bull Riding - a fund important enough for some of the riders that they had to borrow to make the investment, says Professional Bull Riding chief executive officer Randy Bernard.

The investment assets turned out to be well worth it. In 1994, the total annual prize winnings were $660,000. By 2003, the total container winnings had climbed to $9.5 million. When the Longhorn Championship Rodeo association tried to move east with an event at New York City's Madison Square Garden in the late 1990s, "they laughed at us," says Mr. Bernard. "Our sponsors told us, 'Easterners are not our type of fan.' "Now as they fill up arenas from Connecticut to Columbus, Ohio, there is still an attempt to tailor events for audiences who may not be nostalgic for country music and feel more comfortable in the confines of the urban jungle rather than the farm. Rock music and pyrotechnic shows are as much a part of the atmosphere as the dank smell of manure. Saturday night, the letters U-S-A fracture into big shiny flames on the arena's dirt floor to kick off the excitement and start the show. Some call it the right kind of thrill and enthusiasm family fun. Says LeBlanc's wife, Jennifer: adding, "Cowboys are wholesome, down-to-earth, regular guys. Most probably do it because of their families, who were doing it 100 years ago."

Since professional bull rider Lee Akin joined the Professional Bull Riding nearly a decade ago, the sport has changed considerably. "It's become mainstream, so that everyone from an executive to a farmer can enjoy it," says Mr. Akin, who has become a spokesman for prostate cancer awareness and was chosen as Oklahoma's most eligible bachelor in an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. "It's family fun, it's real, it's exciting." "And it keeps growing," adds Bernard, dressed in cowboy boots and a hat. It's the "appeal of the West," he says. "The cowboys say 'Yes ma'am, no ma'am.' And they are out there, every time, trying their hardest."