CHEYENNE, Wy. – This week the inaugural season for Fort Worth’s first-ever professional bull riding team, the Ariat Texas Rattlers, will get underway in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on July 25-26. The two-day event, held in tandem with the iconic Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, will feature the team’s first two games, as well as a Bonus Round to assist in determining the event winner. The competition will begin at 7:45 p.m. MT on Monday, July 25, and Tuesday, July 26.
The Rattlers are one of eight founding teams in the new PBR Team Series – playing five-on-five bull riding games to crown a team champion Nov. 4-6 in Las Vegas. During the regular season, all teams will compete in 10 events, playing in a combined 28 games. The Rattlers will compete in Fort Worth, Texas, at Dickies Arena on October 7-9. Ahead of the competition this week, below is a breakdown of the event format, daily matchups, starting rosters and more.
FORMAT: During the two-day, regular season event in Cheyenne, each of the eight founding teams for the PBR Team Series will compete in a head-to-head, five-on-five bull riding game each day of competition. For the four games on Monday and on Tuesday, each team’s head coach will select five riders to match against the five bulls assigned to their team. The team with the highest aggregate score will be the game winner, and ties will be allowed. The same process will be repeated on the second night of competition, with each team facing a new opponent.
A bonus round will follow Tuesday’s second round of games, with each team selecting one rider to attempt one final bull. This rider can be an alternate (bench) rider who has yet to compete in the event. The Bonus Round is independent of the results of that weekend’s previous games and only applies to the overall event standings in the case of a tie. Teams receive bonus points based on their rider’s placement in the Bonus Round: 1st (8 points), 2nd (7 points), 3rd (6 points), 4th (5 points), 5th (4 points), 6th (3 points), 7th (2 points), 8th (1 point). Teams will be placed via ride score and then buckoff time.
The overall event-winning team will be the team with the best overall win-loss record. In the event of a tie in the event standings, a team’s bonus points will be the first tiebreaker. If there is still a tie, the second tiebreaker will be the team’s total aggregate score from its two games. The next and final tiebreaker will be combined buckoff time from a team’s games.
LET’S RECAP THE PRESEASON: Two preseason events were held for the PBR Team Series. In the overall preseason standings, the Ariat Texas Rattlers finished sixth, going 2-2 in game play, amassing 518.25 aggregate and 7 Bonus Round points. During the first event in Bismarck, North Dakota, after suffering a 256-173.5 defeat to the Carolina Cowboys, the Rattlers rallied to shut out the Arizona Ridge Riders 84-0. As the preseason continued in Tryon, North Carolina, the Rattlers began game play with a 174.5-84.75 victory against the Kansas City Outlaws but were then defeated by the Austin Gamblers, 244.5-86.25.
OPPONENT – JULY 25: During the opening day of games for the PBR Team Series event in Cheyenne, Wyoming on July 25, the Ariat Texas Rattlers will play the Missouri Thunder.
OPPONENT – JULY 26: Following their game against the Missouri Thunder on Monday, the Ariat Texas Rattlers will face off against the Kansas City Outlaws on Tuesday, July 26. Teams can change their roster between games. The rosters for the Ariat Texas Rattlers vs. Kansas City Outlaws will be made available prior to the start of the game.
NOTE: For a complete list of all the game matchups scheduled for the Cheyenne regular-season event, click here.
ARIAT TEXAS RATTLERS’ STARTING LINEUP & MATCHUPS – JULY 25:
(Note: Each rider and bull’s name are hyperlinked to their PBR.com bio page with additional competition stats and history.)
Head Coach Cody Lambert: A co-founder of the PBR, Cody Lambert is a true rodeo legend. Qualifying to the PBR World Finals from 1994-1996, Lambert remained intimately involved with the PBR following his retirement from competition, becoming the organization’s Livestock Director, a role he’s held for the past three decades, selecting the bulls that are an essential ingredient for the PBR’s explosive growth. In addition to being one of the inaugural inductees into the prestigious PBR Ring of Honor, Lambert is also a member of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Rodeo Hall of Fame.
PBR Insider Justin Felisko’s Rider to Watch: Rattlers Head Coach Cody Lambert is not waiting to unleash his latest free agent, going with Braidy Randolph in the Rattlers’ first game in team history. The 21-year-old Randolph most recently won the NFR Open at the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and will face the rank Moonlight Party. Randolph, who left high school to pursue a rodeo career full-time, is 8-for-17 this year in PRCA competition. He is nearly three years removed from a gruesome broken tibia/fibula injury in Syracuse, New York, which also led to a leg infection. For more from Felisko, click here.
MISSOURI THUNDER’S STARTING LINEUP & MATCHUPS – JULY 25:
(Note: Each rider and bull’s name are hyperlinked to their PBR.com bio page with additional competition stats and history.)
Head Coach Luke Snyder: PBR Ring of Honor and 2014 Missouri Sports Hall of Fame inductee Luke Snyder watched the film 8 Seconds as a 10-year-old and knew he’d be a bull rider. Snyder emulated Lane Frost on and off the dirt. In PBR competition, he lays claim to perhaps the most impressive record in any professional sport – competing in 275 consecutive events. During nine years of not missing an elite-level event, Snyder battled through a torn rotator cuff, broken right hand, groin pull and broken fibula and broken neck (the latter coinciding with a break in the schedule, allowing him sufficient time to recover.) In addition to winning the PBR World Finals in 2001, the year he also won Rookie of the Year, Snyder won six premier series events, including the 2011 Last Cowboy Standing. He qualified for the World Finals 13 times and is No. 13 on PBR’s all-time list of earners.
PBR Insider Justin Felisko’s Rider to Watch: While Cody Jesus was the big surprise on the scoreboard at the 2021 PBR World Finals, Andrew Alvidrez almost became the Cody Jesus story, with two buckoffs at the Finals beyond the 7-second mark. Had those two buckoffs been qualified rides, Alvidrez, who competed with a broken foot, would have placed inside the Top 3 of the event average. For more from Felisko, click here.
Rematches to Watch: During the Missouri Thunder’s game against the Ariat Texas Rattlers, three riders will face rematches, all seen during the 2022 individual season.
Adriano Salgado will have his rivalry with American Gangster renewed. As the lone rider to have previously covered his opponent, Salgado rode the bovine athlete for 89.25 points during Round 2 of the Unleash The Beast event in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Clayton Sellars will go head-to-head with Milk Mustache for the second time in his career. Earlier this year in Billings, Montana, Milk Mustached bested the Floridian in 4.24 seconds.
Cody Teel will attempt Bubba G after being bucked off the bull this winter in Glendale, Arizona in a close 7.62 seconds.
HOW TO WATCH: CBS Sports Network will televise all the action from the PBR Team Series season debut in Cheyenne, Wyoming, LIVE. Coverage will begin at 10:00 p.m. ET on both Monday, July 25 and Tuesday, July 26. CBS Sports will also air a one-hour highlight show from the season-launch PBR Team Series event on Sunday, July 31 at 1:00 p.m. ET. PBR RidePass on PlutoTV will offer replays of all the PBR Team Series action from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Check https://pluto.tv/en/live-tv/pbr-ridepass for the latest programming schedule.
ASSETS & INTERVIEWS: Following each game, photo and video assets of the Ariat Texas Rattlers will be made available. Remote interviews with team leadership, including Head Coach Cody Lambert, and competing riders will also be made available upon request.
ABOUT THE ARIAT TEXAS RATTLERS: Under the leadership of General Manager, Mark George the Texas Rattlers, coached by PBR co-founder Cody Lambert, are owned by the Fisher Family, founders of Gap Inc., one of the founding team owners for the launch of the PBR Team Series. Their team will be based in Fort Worth, Texas, competing at Dickies Arena for their inaugural Rattlers Days homestand on October 7-9, the 9th event of the league’s 10-event 2022 PBR Team Series regular season. For decades, the Fisher Family have made investments in footwear and apparel, real estate, and timberland and forest products, and education and sports, including ownership of the Oakland Athletics and San Jose Earthquakes. Through its Ariat brand, the official boot of PBR, the Fisher family have been longtime supporters of PBR. The family is actively involved with a number of philanthropic causes, including SFMOMA, The KIPP Foundation, and UCSF.
ABOUT THE PBR (PROFESSIONAL BULL RIDERS) TEAM SERIES: The PBR Team Series is an elite new league that will feature the world’s top bull riders competing on teams in five-on-five bull riding games during an 11-event season beginning in July and culminating in a team championship at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas November 4-6. During the 2022 season, each of the eight teams representing teams in Austin, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Glendale, AZ; Kansas City, MO; Nashville, TN; Oklahoma City, OK; Ridgedale, MO; and Winston-Salem, NC will host a three-day homestand. There will also be neutral site games in Cheyenne, WY and Anaheim, CA. To determine team rosters, the league held a rider draft on May 23 prior to start of the 2022 season among any bull riders who have declared for the draft during a league eligibility window. The PBR Team Series builds on the existing structure of professional bull riding with the same basic rules for judging and scoring qualified 8-second bull rides. Events will be staged in a tournament-style format with all teams competing in head-to-head matchups against a different opponent each day. Each game will feature five riders per team squaring off against another team. Full team rosters will be comprised of seven riders on the core roster and three practice squad members. The team with the highest aggregate score of qualified rides among its riders will be declared the winner of each game. The event winner will be the team with the most game wins across an event, with a special bonus round designed as a tie-breaker to determine final event standings. All PBR Team Series events will be carried on either the CBS Television Network, streaming live on Paramount+, CBS Sports Network, or RidePass on PlutoTV.
