ProRodeo Sports News - Sept. 29, 2023

EDITOR’S LETTER TRACY RENCK

Tracy Renck is the editor of the ProRodeo

Sports News. He previously served more than seven years as a media coordinator at the PRCA. He has three decades of experience in sports journalism with the last several consumed by ProRodeo.

Roseanna Sales photo The Denny Sanford Premier Center is home to the inaugural Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup presented by Community Coffee. The event takes place Sept. 28-30.

Contestants appreciative of lucrative Cinch Playoffs T he planning for this event began several years earlier and finally in 2023 the Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup presented by Community Coffee has come to fruition, Sept. 28-30 at the Denny Sanford Premier Center. partner is Logan Medlin. “Hopefully we will end the season on a high note and go home with a boatload of money in our pockets. For a lot of us it can springboard us in contention for a world title once we get to Vegas and other guys it will springboard you from being on the (Top 15) bubble to the middle of pack. “We are just extremely grateful to have a playoff system like this and it comes down to the end like this where we can win quite a bit and go home and enjoy the fall.

Last September, the PRCA, the state of South Dakota, Experience Sioux Falls and Cinch announced the Cinch Playoffs will have athletes competing for the Governor’s Cup and vying for the $1.1 million purse. This is the richest rodeo in South Dakota history. On Sept. 27, the red carpet was rolled out for the contestants at the District. They were introduced on stage to fans, friends and family. It was quite the ceremony that included food, drink and a live band. The top four finishers from each event at the Playoffs in Puyallup, Wash., Sept. 7-10, and the top eight out of the standings of the Playoff Series presented by Pendleton Whisky advanced to Sioux Falls. At the Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup, the rounds on Sept. 28-29 will pay $10,000 for first; $7,500 (second); $5,000 (third); $2,500 (fourth). On Sept. 30, it will be a clean slate for the contestants with the top eight in the aggregate from rounds 1 and 2 competing. The top four times/scores advance to a final round and an even bigger payday. The final four round pays $25,000 to first; $19,000 (second); $12,000 (third); and $6,000 (fourth). Veteran team roping header Coleman Proctor, who has competed in seven Wrangler National Finals Rodeos, is appreciative of all the people who helped make the Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup a reality. “We are just extremely grateful as contestants,” said Proctor, whose

“We want to thank everybody in South Dakota who put this together not just for the Governor’s Cup this year but as well as in 2020 this was a state that kept everything open (during the COVID-19 pandemic) and kept us rodeo cowboys working. The great leadership that South Dakota has shown, we are just all grateful as rodeo cowboys from the bottom of our hearts and want to tell them thank you.” Proctor arrived in Sioux Falls 10th in the PRCA | RAM World Standings with $98,487, but there’s not a lot of breathing room as the No. 15 cowboy in the standings Cody Snow was at $89,753. “For a guy like me who is in the bottom five of standings it is a big chance to close a big gap on some of the top teams who didn’t make it (to Sioux Falls),” Proctor said. Ty Erickson, the 2017 PRCA Steer Wrestling World Champion, echoed Proctor. “It is great that we have an event like this at the end of the season,” Erickson said. “There are not many rodeos we can come to like this very often so when they do have events like this it is pretty special.”

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ProRodeo Sports News 9/29/2023

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