AR-News: (U.S.) Bull Riding: Extreme-ly Profitable

[Mary Finelli]

Letters to the Editor: letters at washpost.com


Front page:

WAY TO MAKE A BUCK
Bull Riding: Extreme-ly Profitable
The Washington Post, Lee Hockstader, April 7, 2004

complete article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56031-2004Apr6.html

Houston -- Men who ride 1,800-pound bucking bulls for a living do not as a 
rule say "yee-ha," although they tend to speak with cowboy drawls thick as 
braided rope. They keep fit with hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups a day, 
developing granite physiques and extra allure for rodeo groupies, known as 
"buckle bunnies." At just about any rodeo, the bull riders are relatively 
easy to spot: They're the ones whose faces are creased and splotched by 
scars; they're the ones who limp.

Bull riding is so dangerous, and the bulls are bred for such reliable 
ferocity, that the pros wear flak jackets, mouth guards and, increasingly, 
helmets. Nonetheless, a bull rider is injured every 13 or so rides -- 
stomped by hooves, head-butted in midair, dragged by his own rope, 
bludgeoned by horns the dimensions of warped baseball bats -- and every year 
or so someone is killed.

Increasingly, and largely because of the sport's dependable violence, 
Americans beyond the traditional country rodeo audience are embracing bull 
riding. Capitalizing on its notoriety as the most dangerous eight seconds in 
sports, the event has hit the big time, attracting television deals, huge 
crowds, serious money and major corporate sponsors.

For years in the 1980s and '90s, rodeo, with its country roots and wholesome 
cowboys, all but disappeared from mainstream television. But now, in an era 
marked by the rising popularity of extreme (read: dangerous) sports, bull 
riding has staked a claim as America's original extreme sport.

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