By BRETT HOFFMAN
Special to the Post
When the Professional Bull Riders brings its top-tier tour to Texas each season, no one is surprised to see big crowds turn out.
After all, rodeo events are popular in Texas, a state long known for western monikers such as Cowboys, Rangers, Mavericks, Red Raiders and Longhorns.
The PBR's Built Ford Tough Series stop at American Airlines Center on Jan. 24-25 was a natural fit, and the Aug. 1-2 tour stop in San Antonio is expected to go over very well.
The same type of enthusiasm is a little unexpected in major metropolitan areas of the Northeast such as Washington, New York and Boston.
But it wasn't such a stretch a half century ago when the annual pro rodeo in Madison Square Garden was the sport's biggest event. In addition to competing in New York for a month, cowboys also worked a successful rodeo at the Boston Garden.
However, by the time that I began covering rodeos in the mid-1980s, those high-profile shows in New York and Boston were a thing of the distant past.
Fast forward to today and western riding again is alive and well in the Northeast, thanks to the PBR.
On the weekend of Jan. 2-3, the PBR's Ford Series opened the season in Baltimore and set attendance records. The association's top-tier tour also will return to Worcester, Mass., on May 1-3, where the event has been a success for the past decade.
On the weekend of Jan. 9-11, the PBR conducted a major tour stop at New York's Madison Square Garden, which hosted a successful Ford Series event for a third year in a row.
Randy Bernard, the PBR's chief executive officer, said the New York stop is a success for the same reasons the old Madison Square Garden Rodeo thrived in the 1940s and 1950s. At that time, famous film icons such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers roped in the fans to watch pro rodeo legends such as Casey Tibbs, Jim Shoulders and Harry Tompkins.
Today, the PBR is a draw at Madison Square Garden because it features marquee bull riders such as defending world champion Guilherme Marchi, 2008 PBR World Finals average winner Robson Palermo, 2008 BFTS reserve champion 2008 PBR Rookie of the Year Reese Cates, and J.B. Mauney, the popular 2008 Ford Series reserve champion who clinched the title last weekend in New York and earned $30,245.
And the PBR thrives on aggressively promoting the world's top cowboys and bulls and having them face off in a dramatic show, which features pyrotechnics productions and rock music with each attempted 8-second ride. In other words, a producer must come up with one amazing performance in order to succeed in the Big Apple, and the PBR has stepped up.
"You're not going to fool New Yorkers," Bernard said.
Sharron Shoulders, wife of the late seven-time world bull riding champion Jim Shoulders, said it's been refreshing to watch the PBR go into Madison Square Garden.
"They use their top bull riders to draw in fans," Shoulders said. "When Jim competed, the producers would use big western movie star to get fans to come, but when they got in there, they really enjoyed watching the top rodeo cowboys compete. The fact that the PBR mainly uses their top bull riders to captivate fans says a lot for the PBR."
On the week that the PBR was in New York, star bull riders came to town early to promote this year's event. Cates appeared at the Garden during an NHL game between the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers. He also joined Bernard and Mauney in ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange. And Cates was interviewed during a taping of the Rachael Ray Show.
"Whenever people see bull riders on the Rachael Ray Show and at the New York Stock Exchange, they get the opportunity to learn about the personality of a bull rider, and realize that we're not just a bunch of dumb rednecks trying to stay on the back of a bull," Cates said. "We're pretty educated people who come here for a purpose, and it's not just to ride bulls."
That's the right way to promote the PBR in New York, said Tompkins, a legendary roughstock rider of the 1940s and 1950s. Tompkins said he and other top cowboys made the same kinds of media appearances back then to promote the Madison Square Garden Rodeo.
Tompkins, a native of Peekskill, N.Y., who lived in Dublin during his heyday, said he once appeared on the popular game show To Tell the Truth to help promote the New York City rodeo. The basic premise of the show consisted of a panel of celebrities identifying a contestant -- a central character -- from a choice of three people. But when Tompkins appeared on the show, no one on the celebrity panel believed he was a bull rider with a gold buckle when he told them he was a New York native.
"That threw them off right away," Tompkins said. "They would say, 'How could he be from New York and be a World Champion?'"
Brett Hoffman is a member of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. He can be reached at brett@myrodeoinsider.com.