NFR continues to grow at the Thomas & Mack

Thursday, Dec. 4, 1997 | 12:23 p.m.

Cowboys work all year in hopes of qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo, the PRCA's premier championship event held each December at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The top 15 regular-season finishers in each event qualify for the NFR and compete for prize money. In 1995, this prize money exceeded $3 million.

The NFR features the Top 15 competitors in each of professional rodeo's seven events: saddle bronc riding, bull riding, bareback riding, calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling and barrel racing.

About 170,000 people attended the National Finals Rodeo last December in Las Vegas and more than 13 million viewers tuned in when all 10 rounds of the Finals were broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2.

The PRCA did not always have a year-ending championship event. Before its inception in 1959, world championships were decided solely on the basis of regular-season earnings.

Dallas was the site of the first NFR, which offered a purse of $50,000. After three years in Dallas, the fledgling event moved to Los Angeles.

After another three seasons, the NFR moved to Oklahoma City, where it remained for 20 highly successful years. By 1984, the purse had climbed to $901,550. In 1985, the NFR made another move, this time to its present home at Las Vegas' Thomas and Mack Center.

Since then, the NFR purse has grown from $1.8 million in 1985 to more than $3 million in 1995. The Finals are contractually bound to stay in Las Vegas through the turn of the century, and the projected purse for the year 2000 is nearly $4 million.

The NFR 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, steers and calves.