Local fans have chance to see pro rodeo’s best at MGM event

Steve Addy

Thursday, May 9, 2002 | 9:45 a.m.

If you want to attend National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center in December, no problem. As long as you're talking about December 2003.

This year's championship, Dec. 6-15, is already a virtual sellout, except for some hotel-ticket packages that will be available by late summer.

But local rodeo fans will have a good opportunity to see most of the stars of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) on June 13-15 when the MGM Grand Garden Arena hosts the USST Co. Cup Finale, the culmination of the 10-city Winter Wrangler ProRodeo Tour.

The $470,000 event, in its third year in Las Vegas, will feature the top 12 ProRodeo Tour point-getters from each event: bareback riding, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, barrel racing and team roping.

Tickets, priced at $25, $50 and $100, are available through TicketMaster (474-4000) and the MGM Grand (669-0360).

"The Cup Finale is every bit as good as the National Finals Rodeo -- same contestants, same horses," said bareback rider Lan LaJeunesse, 31, of Morgan, Utah, the 1999 and 2001 world champion.

"It's a shorter event, but it's just as good. The National Finals are so popular and famous that people may not think anything else compares. But that's not the case," said LaJeunesse, who accompanied fellow world champions Joe Beaver (team roping) and Janet Stover (barrel racing) on a local promo tour this week.

Meanwhile, preparations continue for the Wrangler National Finals. Hotel-ticket packages will be available through a website, NFRexperience.com, which is tentatively scheduled for a July launch.

The packages will be individually tailored by hotels that sponsor NFR, so no price structures have been announced. There will also be packages that don't include NFR tickets.

This year's event will also feature an expanded NFR Village, a pre-event parking-lot party that will include interactive displays, musical acts and hospitality areas.

"Anything we can do to reach new fans is a positive," LaJeunesse said. "I think we've got a great thing going in Las Vegas, but there are always ways to improve it. If you're not getting better, you're getting worse."

NFR will be in Las Vegas for the 19th straight year, and the event is set to stay here through 2009."