popular thinking

8 SECONDS FROM GLORY TO GORY, THE RISE OF PROFESSIONAL BULL RIDING

Just when you thought NASCAR and poker had taken up most of the legroom on the sports landscape, here comes professional bull riding, bucking for mainstream attention.
The next two weekends, live and in person, millions will watch the top riders on the Professional Bull Riders tour compete for the $1 million world championship prize in Las Vegas.
Among the spectators: Jaune DeFrancesco of Methuen.
The 51-year-old Best Buy worker won an all-expenses-paid trip to the PBR's Built Ford Tough World Finals by finishing second in the official fantasy league. Yes, even bull riding has its own online fantasy leagues in which casual fans predict the top riders and bulls.
"I'm a cowgirl at heart,'' DeFrancesco said. "I love NASCAR. I just love country.''
She attends the PBR Worcester Classic each January, but she doesn't bother with other rodeo events. "Just the bull riding,'' she said. "I don't enjoy (rodeo). I watch it if nothing else is on, but this is an adrenaline rush. They put their lives on the line every time they do this, and unless they place each time, they're not earning much money.''
That's exactly what PBR's chief executive, Randy Bernard, expects to hear.
"We looked at NASCAR as a model way more than we looked at rodeo as a model,'' Bernard said from Las Vegas. "If anything, our audience is much more a NASCAR audience than a rodeo audience."
He recalled when the top riders broke ranks with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1992, putting up $1,000 apiece to start their own tour.
"We actually have money now,'' Bernard said, laughing.
No joke. The $40 million budget for 2005 included $22 million in corporate sponsorships.
The world finals pay out $3.2 million in prize money to the top 45 riders, and fans will watch the Outdoor Life Network and NBC to see if points leader Justin McBride, who already has earned $289,701 this year, can bring home the gold buckle.
Bernard acknowledged that PBR already enjoys great success out West, but claimed that more than 60 percent of attendees at the finals in Vegas will come from east of the Mississippi River.
It's popular in such places as Worcester and the Mohegan Sun (where the 2006 season opens next month) because the thrill of the sport translates anywhere, he said.
"Worcester has been great for us,'' he said. "I don't care if we have 24 inches of snow. We're going to sell out there.''
Comparing PBR and the PRCA, Bernard said, is like "comparing NASCAR with Formula One racing ... a younger beer-drinking audience versus a champagne audience."
Bernard said PBR is developing a behind-the-scenes reality show with The Learning Channel that should help bring the sport to new audiences, while the tour is also opening offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada and Mexico.
What about New England?
Two minor-league circuits made about 160 stops to smaller venues around the country, including Maine and upstate New York. "The biggest thing we can do up there, we need a world champion from the East Coast,'' Bernard said.
That's not likely just yet, as only 10 of the 800-or-so PBR members listed in the database have a Bay State base. The top Massachusetts rider has pocketed only $3,851 in career PBR earnings.
Perhaps you'll find local riders on the even smaller circuit known as International Bull Riding, which is run by a Maryland ranch family and visited the Topsfield Fair earlier this month. The top IBR rider this season, Trinity Dunkleberger, earned $14,351 -- chump change compared to the PBR.
But the risks remain the same.
New Englanders who want to see the safer, more artificial version can visit Boston's Boylston alley, where The Liquor Store's mechanical bull continues to attract hundreds of amateur bull riders every weekend since it was installed a year ago.
DeFrancesco prefers the real thing. Her favorite rider is Brazilian Adriano Moreas, who won in Worcester in 2004.
Her husband, Dennis, doesn't embrace the sport like she does, so she "drags him along" to watch the riders battle for eight seconds of glory triumph or gory defeat.
"It's kind of a solitary thing," she said of her love of bull riding. "I've tried to convert my son. My other friends all think I'm crazy."

This is the full version of my story. An edited version appeared today in the Boston Herald.