PRORODEO Sports News - August 9, 2024

MANAGER’S MESSAGE TRACY RENCK Time is now to make push to qualify for Wrangler NFR T he 2024 ProRodeo season is heading down the homestretch. The calendar has flipped to August and crazy as it seems the regular season will be completed by Sept. 30. Contestants are scratching and clawing to find

any way possible to qualify for the coveted Wrangler National Finals Rodeo – the place where gold buckle dreams come true. This year’s NFR is scheduled for Dec. 5-14 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. The prize money available to NFR contestants

this year will be $12,501,505 – and is increasing thanks to the contract extension recently signed by Las Vegas Events and the PRCA to keep the NFR in Vegas through 2035. Now is certainly the time for contestants to make the NFR push. Once August rolled around some cowboys called it a season because they knew making the NFR wasn’t a possibility this year. The key for NFR-hopeful cowboys is availability and consistency. Those are variables they can control. Usually when a cowboy can stay healthy and is fundamentally doing things the right way time and time again, they will be rewarded. The possible NFR qualifier storylines are abundant. Here’s just a sample size: • Will reigning PRCA

Tracy Renck is the Manager of Communications and Media. He previously served three years as the editor of the ProRodeo Sports News , and before that he spent seven years as a media coordinator at the

PRCA. He has three decades of experience in sports journalism.

Bull Riding World Champion Ky Hamilton, whose season has been sabotaged by injuries, rally and go on a hot streak and qualify to compete in Vegas and defend his crown? • Will Resistol Rookie and rising star bareback rider/bull rider Wacey Schalla qualify for the NFR in one or

John Pyle photo Bull rider Ky Hamilton had an 88-point ride on Dakota Rodeo’s Regular Joe to win the third performance at Cheyenne Frontier Days. Hamilton earned $2,380 in his frantic push to make the Wrangler NFR during his season which has been wrecked by injuries.

slate before the Cinch Playoffs in Puyallup, Wash., (Sept. 5-8) and the Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup, Sept. 26-28 in Sioux Falls, S.D. Happening the last week of the rodeo season, the Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup will once again include the top four finishers from each event from the Cinch Playoffs in Puyallup, and the top eight out of the Playoff Series season standings. The Governor’s Cup will pay out more than $1.3 million in three days. In 2023, the inaugural event was a fight to the finish. The 2023 Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup win for bareback rider Mason Clements earned him a $28,750 payday and propelled him to his first appearance at the NFR since 2020. The action in rodeo arenas across the country is heating up just like the weather. Sit back and enjoy and check prorodeo.com to see who is out and who is in their quest to claim an NFR bid.

both of his events to make a run at capturing the all-around gold buckle. That would be historic since he would be the second cowboy to ever win the coveted all-around gold buckle as a rookie. • How much money will cowboys have to earn in each respective event to make the Top 15? In 2023, only 10 of the 119 NFR qualifiers (Stetson Wright qualified in two events last year) – four in steer wrestling; one team roping header; and five team roping heelers – earned less than $100,000 in the regular season. The money is still out there for cowboys on the outside of the NFR looking in with countless rodeos still remaining on the schedule. Specifically, there are 16 Playoff Series Rodeos remaining on the

ProRodeo Sports News 8/9/2024

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