Columnist Ron Kantowski: New rodeo tour boost for Las Vegas

Thursday, May 4, 2000 | 10:46 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

It has become a pillar on the local sports landscape, yet Las Vegans always have had at least two major beefs with the National Finals Rodeo.

One is that it makes the resort corridor smell like a corral for 10 days every December. Two is that it is nearly impossible to get tickets.

It won't be that way for the Copenhagen Cup Finale, which will debut at the MGM Grand June 8-10.

Oh, it'll still make the south end of the Strip smell like Wilbur Post's place. But only for three days. As for tickets, plenty of good ones are still available. In fact, according to Steve Fleming, the director of communications for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, virtually all tickets are still available.

The Copenhagen Cup will serve as the grand finale of the inaugural Wrangler Pro Rodeo Tour, a made-for-TV (The Nashville Network) series of eight high-profile rodeos that debuted in January.

Fleming said the idea behind the new tour was to get rodeo on television, which in turn can "help create stars."

Outside of the arenas, honky tonks and cow pastures on the dusty PRCA trail, there's only one rodeo cowboy whose name may be recognizable to the average sports fan. With a collection of brass belt buckles rivaling the one at Sam's Town Western Emporium and the home phone number of the pop singer Jewel tucked away in his saddlebags, Ty Murray is certainly big for his Wranglers britches.

But Fleming said the goal of the new tour is to make household names out of guys such as Eric Mouton, the 1997 world bareback champion who accompanied him on Wednesday's publicity stop in Las Vegas.

"Only 10 guys compete and six guys are gonna win something," said Mouton, who hopes to be in that group despite a cast that is protecting his broken left forearm, a result of a riding spill. "Plus we get to come here -- and stay here -- for four days with our expenses paid. That beats driving 10 hours to rodeo in Hamlet, Minn."

Provided it continues to catch on with fans -- with added purses (such as the $470,000 that will be split up here) and room service, it's already a big hit with the competitors -- the Wrangler Tour may serve as the blueprint for a newly structured PRCA. Fleming foresees a hybrid of the NASCAR and PGA Tours, where the cowboys would compete in 35-50 nationally televised events per year, rather than barnstorming 100-125 rodeos as they do now in places the Rand McNally folks have yet to identify.

Those grassroots locales would continue to host lesser rodeos, becoming the equivalent of golf's Buy.com Tour or stock car racing's Busch Series.

There are a lot of details to be worked out -- such as ticket prices for instance. Seats for the Copenhagen Cup are tentatively scaled from a reasonable $30 to a totally unreasonable $150, although the PRCA is working with the MGM to establish some sort of family discount.

Fleming is hoping for a crowd in the 10,000-12,000 range. But he said in that TV and the tour's other sponsors are footing the bill, were the site not Las Vegas, the size of the crowd wouldn't matter.

"Everywhere I've gone in this town for the last eight or 10 years, people say they can never get (NFR) tickets," Fleming said. "That's why we're doing it in Las Vegas and not somewhere else."