ProRodeo Sports News - March 19, 2021

DIRECTOR’S CUT SCOTT KANIEWSKI

A year later and rodeo is back in the saddle again A bout this time last year, rodeo went silent. Like all sports organizations in North America and around the world, ProRodeo ground to a halt as the COVID-19 pandemic surged. steers, draws or stand-alone events. The rules quickly shifted to concerns with state and local laws. Sports became entangled in regulations in a way they rarely have. We put up a COVID-19 page on ProRodeo.com that listed cancellations and postponements. It quickly became the second-

On March 11, RodeoHouston announced it was shutting down. The rodeo had made it through two brackets and the second round of the third bracket. But that’s where it ended. Do you remember where you were? I was sitting in a PRCA office in Colorado Springs, Colo., watching RodeoHouston’s press conference. By then, rumors of rodeos across North American shutting down were starting to fly. When Houston shuttered its chutes, that was when it hit home, this could be very bad. And it was. For the next two-plus months, there were no ProRodeos. There weren’t any sports. There weren’t any events. Cowboys found other ways to pass the time. They found other ways to make money. Like the rest of the country they adapted to a world that in a way stopped spinning. Their world, like everyone else’s, shrunk. There were no late- night flights or last-second standby boardings. There were no 13- hour drives to make a 4-second run only to jump back in and drive another two hours to the next stop. For them, it was idle time. In the PRCA office, it was a time of mad scramble, though the “office” became the dining room table or the spare bedroom or the computer table that was covered in dust because most “computers” are now called cell phones. Rodeo rules and concerns became concerns about rodeo in general. The rules that became important had nothing to do with

most read page on the website, behind only the home page. But ProRodeo, like the rest of the world both sports and non-sports, began to navigate the hazardous canal. As spring transitioned to summer, things started to open (slightly) in places. And when summer slipped into fall the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo moved to Texas. The crowning jewel of the ProRodeo season was a shining example of how the sport could adapt like all of us. Athletes at the NFR still took home $10 million. They still bucked and rode and carried home gold buckles. Now, winter is melting into spring. and the number of rodeos that are canceling or postponing are dwindling. The ProRodeo Tour has nearly 60 rodeos on its slate, including the Tour Finale at California Rodeo Salinas. Cowboys are going to spend the hottest months of the year scorching the country in search of another Wrangler NFR berth. The vaccine to eradicate the pandemic is being administered across the globe. That means rodeos will have fans sitting shoulder to shoulder, getting autographs from cowboys and cowgirls, interacting in that way that makes rodeo different from other sports. A year removed from the world shutting down, normalcy is coming back. And so is a full slate of rodeo. Not sure about you, but we missed both.

Scott Kaniewski is the Media Director at the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. He previously served more than two years as the editor of ProRodeo Sports News. He has nearly two decades of experience in sports journalism, with the last few being consumed by ProRodeo.

ProRodeo Sports News 3/19/2021

ProRodeo.com

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