Thursday, Dec. 5, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
SPECIAL TO THE SUN
The National Finals Rodeo is the premier event in professional rodeo, gathering the top 15 cowboys in each event on the top livestock of the year in 10 rounds of exciting action each December.
World titles and tens of thousands of dollars hang in the balance in every performance.
But the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association did not always have a year-ending championship event. Before 1959, world championships were decided solely on the basis of regular-season earnings. With the volume of prize money now offered at the NFR, however, the entire regular season can be a mere prelude to a 10-day run for a title for a qualifying cowboy.
Since its inception in 1959, the NFR has featured the top 15 competitors in each of rodeo's seven events: saddle bronc riding, bull riding, bareback riding, calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling and barrel racing. Contestants work all year to qualify for the big show, with the final NFR roster usually being decided at the last rodeo of the regular season.
Rarely can a contestant hope to come home with a world title if he has a poor showing at the NFR. But if someone enters the Finals in the lower part of the standings, a hot streak can put him into title contention. For instance, team roper Allen Bach came into the 1990 finale in 15th place, but roped his way to the championship. Billy Etbauer posted the highest single-event NFR total on record at the 1992 NFR, winning more than $100,000 en route to his first saddle bronc riding world title.
The National Finals Rodeo celebrated its 11th anniversary in Las Vegas last year. Dallas was the site of the first NFR; that 1959 event boasted a total purse of $50,000. After three years in Dallas, the NFR moved to Los Angeles for three years.
The next move brought the NFR to Oklahoma City, where it remained for 20 highly successful years. The event grew in popularity and by 1984 the purse had grown to nearly $1 million.
In 1985, the NFR made another move, this time to its present home at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of UNLV. The NFR is contractually bound to be in Las Vegas through the turn of the century.
The National Finals Rodeo is overseen by Executive General Manager Shawn Davis, a three-time world champion saddle bronc rider. He coordinates more than 1,000 workers and hundreds of horses, bulls and roping cattle during 10 performances.
More than 170,000 people attend the NFR each year, and millions more watch on ESPN and ESPN2.
The NFR purse jumped to $1.8 million in 1985 with the move to Las Vegas and has grown steadily ever since. The 1996 NFR is expected to pay $3.2 million; the projected figure for the year 2000 is nearly $4 million.
archive
