I've had a lot of complaints about the bulls at some of the Tour rodeos including Caldwell and Colo. Springs. Several of them actually.

The PRCA should, as a condition of awarding television to a rodeo, address the quality of livestock issue with the committees that want to be televised. Tour rodeos don't have to be mini NFRs. In many instances all it would take is to cut off the bottom end of the main guy's herd and bring in one more sub. For example, at Colorado Springs -- just cutting off ten bulls and having Burns bring the replacements would've made this a good bull riding. Sure, it mighta cost the rodeo committee a couple of thousand dollars more (or at least it should) but I'm thinking that Ranch Headquarters has been giving every tour rodeo $7,500 for additional stock. Actually it is to be used for all three Riding Events so if they would have done what I just suggested that $2,500 would have paid for Burns. On the other hand, I'm sure Vold is having to pay per outs for his Pueblo partner's bulls when he coulda just bucked his own so he probably spent more than the $2,500. Still... we needed MORE good bulls and less non-placeable bulls. Not just here, but at most places with significant purse money. More money needs to be spent to get better stock.

You can make a 23 point ride on a 16 point bareback horse and sometimes place but 17 probably should be the bottom on the bares. Good 17's -- not running, ducking, 17's. You can't do that in the bull riding and usually not in the broncs. Broncs, you can get by with 18 pointers and up--if they are good 18's not hard-to-spur 18's. 18 point bulls can't be placed on at any of the larger rodeos. Bulls that are known to be of that quality shouldn't be there. There are enough good bulls around the country that the bottom should be 20 in the bulls. Enough of them will have off days anyway.

We'd never get enough votes to pass such a rule in the bull riding but Ranch Headquarters could and should make it a condition of approving the televised tours. RIGHT NOW. If a rodeo wants television then they should expect to pay for additional stock. Ranch Headquarters shouldn't have to. They aren't getting paid to televise rodeos -- they have to pay for the production, buy air time and sell sponsorships to cover that cost. And they are doing it for the betterment of rodeo. They aren't losing money doing it -- that's pure B.S. Twenty years ago rodeos were PAYING the PRCA $30,000-$35,000--to be televised. The Chambers of Commerce and Tourism bureaus in those cities paid for it. Right now--PRCA rodeo and the PBR are in better shape television-wise than any other sport besides the NFL and baseball. That's a fact. That didn't happen by accident. In the toughest TV market in the two decades, both outfits have people with ability who got off their *sses and got it done. Both outfits ARE IN the television business. They have to be in order to survive. They have to get GOOD at it -- in order to survive. They have to get BETTER at it in order to survive.

If you don't think that television is important to all levels of this sport/business you are nuts. Sponsorships, product sales, ticket sales, and membership are ALL tied to television exposure. National sponsors have evolved a new breed of executive. Young, highly educated, no nonsense, obsessed with television exposure, very knowledgeable in regard to how those viewership numbers relate to the amount of money they are spending in total sponsorships with a sport, and they are in a position to deal tough. And also -- I forgot -- many of them are women. And you KNOW how tough women can be. Dump your television and watch your sponsorships go away.

Every good rodeo that's on the air helps ALL rodeos. For years some cowboys cussed Mesquite but -- tell you what -- the Mesquite telecasts sold thousands and thousands of tickets to OTHER rodeos. We MUST rebuild our fan base. We absolutely MUST reach a younger audience. And when new people show up at a PRCA rodeo--they must be entertained. Those three hour glorified slack type performances--run the flag around the arena--tell a couple booger or ugly wife jokes.... give them a dose of lots of low caliber rodeo non action laced with inside jokes that no one who PAID to see it understands... and then kick them in the butt till next year--type performances. New people won't EVER come back. You have one shot at them.

The clock is ticking. Every year more and more agriculture-appreciative congressman and senators are being replaced by lobbyist loving pennyloafer wearing Park Avenue Poodle petters. The clock is ticking -- hell .... it's stuck on fast forward. WE stuck it. We stuck it by resisting change. We stuck it by choosing to ignore the world around us as it changed. We were content to hide in our protective bubble. But now lots of well organized and financed people go to work every day with some big ol' darning needles. They want rodeo GONE. No compromises will be good enough. GONE.

We can unstick it. We HAVE TO BE telling OUR STORY on television. That means telecasts that are designed to accomplish JUST that. We need to target our telecasts to a NEW audience--not what WE like to see. It has to be interesting and exciting to NEW people; WOMEN, Spanish, career people, Sports Center groupies, the channel surfers, the late nighters, the more affluent, worm dunkers, car chasers, people who WORK for a living... everyday... manually... hard, the CMT crowd, the MTV crowd, even the weirdo X Gamers... and most important -- CHILDREN. More behind the scenes stuff... more stories about the rodeo cities and the fun THEY can have if THEY go there.... more stories about the stock and the clowns and contract performers. More stories about family life. Bravery stuff. Prevailing over adversity stuff. Good feeling stuff. Rodeo needs ALL happy endings.

We have to get NEW people enchanted with the romance and myth of the cowboy and Western way of life. So maybe they'll come check us out... either on TV or in person. So maybe they'll buy a pair of pointy-toed white boots with red wing tips, or some stuck-up their Continental Divide high water jeans, or a dumb looking straw hat that they wear backwards (and it really doesn't make a difference) and every time they put them on--feel better about themselves. Maybe they'll feel stronger... or braver... and have a little ooomph to help get them through their everyday lives. Maybe they'll rediscover their childhood dreams for a few hours. Maybe discover hope again.

Life is hard on everyone. Every person in any walk of life has to cope with all sorts of problems, adversity and heartaches. Everyone. No one gets a free roll at the gate. We can make OTHER people's lives better by telling our story... but it has to be done on television. We have to touch them in a positive way on an emotional level. And hopefully in the process we'll be able to spark the love of rodeo within our own people who have become self centered, selfish, narrow-minded, pessimistic, gossipy, negative, apathetic old turds. PRTA.

We have to tell our story and we have to tell it well -- RIGHT NOW -- or there will be NO future. We can't go back to the old ol' days when we were a glorified public roping club. I was there--it sucked. You can't fund a Hall of Champions... a Central Entry system... a judging program... a member insurance fund... a magazine.... a circuit system... help support the DNCFR..... pay ASCAP for the rights for rodeos to use music.... fight the animal rights wars... recover the unbelievable expenses dropped on the PRCA a few years ago from a badly negotiated long term NFR contract when the board voted to double the prize money in the team roping and bring the barrel racers up to the other events .... plus service, administrate, and SELL a sport-business that is currently not acceptable to a multitude of national sponsors for a variety of reasons... and you sure can't do that on $500 dues and $1-$3 service charges on a shrinking membership. You can't even do it adding in 3% of the prize money and a million bucks in fines derived from, for the most part, a dysfunctional achievement system. The catastrophic insurance policy alone COSTS Ranch Headquarters something like $900,000 per year. Unless you want to cut a bunch of stuff and I mean a BUNCH of stuff, your only way out is to do well on television and generate enough sponsorship support that the commissions (which the PRCA for the first time in 2003 will keep a percentage of ) will pay for all the things running at a deficit. You create new things for sponsors to buy--things that will create revenue through new or lost membership, more user fees, and sponsor commissions. You create things like a bull riding Tour. In the past Ranch Headquarters PASSED THROUGH millions of dollars of sponsorship money to the membership--never taking a commission. Are there some savings to be had in all those areas. Sure, there always are. Enough savings? No... not to operate at the level we need to be successful. To be a creditable sport we need all those things. Plus... we need to DO BUSINESS. And we need to spend money in areas that will MAKE US money. We need to change our focus to SELLING RODEO and Ranch Headquarters, every rodeo, and every member has to help.

The good ol' days are long gone. It's a new world and rodeo has a place in it. We can MAKE our place for the future. Rodeo is of GREAT VALUE to the American way of life. We must tell OUR story or others are going to tell it for us--and it will be in the obituary column.