The American: Evidence for Rodeo Potential

This past Sunday was a big day for our sport. What an incredible experience. I must admit, I was disappointed that I did not get qualified for The American Rodeo, but as a spectator, that was one of the best rodeos I have ever seen! There were a number of things I like about it. Here are my thoughts.
First of all, I love the format of this rodeo and the Qualification process it has. The ways to qualify serve multiple purposes. The first way to qualify is to finish inside the top 10 in the World Standings. The other ways to qualify are to finish inside the top 5 through a series of qualification events or to be exempted straight to the final event. The Qualification events did this for The American and what its purpose was. It allowed a way for anyone to get qualified and it provided a way for the payout at the Semi Finals Qualification to be so big! They took a part of the entry fee at the first round of Qualifiers and added it to the payout of the semi finals. It was Free Entry fees at the Semi Finals and you only had to compete against 50 other contestants at a chance at some BIG money. I love this idea! I think taking entry fee at the first round, then progressing to the second round and having free entry fees at the semi finals for a big payout is great. This makes the sport more competitive and allows for anyone in the sport to break in if they want to work for it. If you earn it, you would have payed your entry fee in the first round, progressed to the second round and have had a chance at a relatively big sized payout compared to what a normal payout in our sport. is. The Qualifying system is great for these two reasons, allowing everyone a fair and equal opportunity to progress and having enough first round qualifiers to provide a free entry fee, and big payout at the Semi Final Event.
Secondly, the production of the event was great! RFDTV produced a rodeo that was fun to compete at, had an INCREDIBLE payout, and was fun to watch as a spectator. They put together an organized event that ran off relatively smoothly. It was fun to watch and be at in person, even as a competitor. The arena layout was interesting. If you watched, you saw they had two different arenas in which they split the events to be run separately in each arena. It was a cool concept and idea that helped the rodeo run well, but there really was not much of a difference from a spectators perspective as to how the rodeo was run in a timely fashion. Two arenas was a new and fun idea, but for me, my seats were not great.

You can see the humongous screen and the two arena layout in this picture.

We had bought our tickets long ago when they first announced it just so we could have some for our friends whether or not I qualified. We got seats that were about 4 or 5 rows up from the bottom looking at one arena. The problem is that we wanted to watch the Team Roping. We like every other event, but my friends and family with us all Team Rope as a hobby and I Professionally Team Rope, so you can understand why thats really what we all wanted to see. Our seats were blocked by the center stage… frustrating for us! I know there is a HUMONGOUS screen above our heads, but we had to look straight up at it AND we we wanted to watch it live, not on a tv screen. Luckily, I knew some of the contestants and they were able to get me a helper pass. 😉 As long as I helped them a little bit, I could go watch the Team Roping down by the arena. The two arena concept is fun and exciting, but it definitely takes away from some of the viewing experience if you want to watch a particular event. I understand that your chances of getting a good seat go up when you split the two arenas, but maybe if we would of known which arena the Team Roping was going to be in, we would of bought our tickets accordingly if we could have chosen our seats. Anyway, there are positives to having two arenas as I have stated above. It is a good idea overall, but they might could make it easier to watch both arenas from anywhere in the stands.
Thirdly, The American Rodeo is a an example of what our sport has the potential to do. If this rodeo was successful from a business perspective, which as far as I can tell and what I have heard it was, then The American Rodeo has provided evidence to what the sport of rodeo is capable of. Other rodeos should look at this rodeo and learn from it. The qualification process was fun, the production of the rodeo was run smoothly, and the attitudes and energy behind the scenes of the crew that love progressing the sport all played a part in how well the entire event process went. Not every rodeo can have a qualification process like this on their own, but imagine if they did something like this by joining with other rodeos??? I could write an entire blog on an idea in which they could do this, BUUUT I think I’ll save that idea for a soon to come post. RFDTV put a ton of work and invested a LOT of money for The American and it looks like it worked for them, from the outside looking in as a Professional Rodeo Cowboy and a spectator/ Fan. The sport of rodeo should be watching what they are going to do next and be ready to move forward with these new ideas and concepts.

Justin Davis, Team Roping contestant who qualified through the qualifiers, and Nick Sartain, a Top 10 qualifier, watching a replay of a run on the GIANT screen above the arena.

The American Rodeo was incredible! If you missed it live, be sure to at least figure out a way to see the highlights or a re run of this event because you missed out of something Rodeo has really never had before. They are a BIG rodeo with a BIG passion for the sport. This is the type of passion and change it takes for Rodeo to get better and progress. I hope that we can all look at The American, learn from it, and maybe jump on board with them in bettering the sport of Rodeo as a whole. DH