Second PBR Major of the Season Takes Place this Weekend at AT&T Stadium

ARLINGTON, Texas – This weekend, the PBR’s (Professionals Bull Riders) Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS) will make the only stop of its 2016 season in Texas with the Choctaw Casino Iron Cowboy, powered by Kawasaki and brought to fans locally by Sonic. The second PBR Major of the 2016 BFTS will take place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington on Feb. 27.

As a PBR Major, the Iron Cowboy includes a unique format, awarding increased points and prize money to its winners. It will feature 40 of the top PBR stars from the BFTS and the PBR’s BlueDEF Tour, the PBR’s qualifying tour, competing to determine who can ride the most consecutive bulls in one evening. The prize purse includes a $100,000 payout to the winner, as well as the opportunity for one rider to ride the Bad Boy Mowers Bounty Bull for an additional $25,000.

The Iron Cowboy will begin at 5:50 p.m. CT, doors will open at 4:20 p.m. This will be the seventh consecutive year that the PBR has visited AT&T Stadium with its Iron Cowboy event.

CBS Sports Network will broadcast the first rounds of the competition at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday, Feb. 27. Fans can also watch all of the action in real time on PBR LIVE located online at www.pbr.com/live, or via the PBR LIVE app which is available for download now on Google Play and iTunes.

The final rounds and the championship will air on CBS Sports on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. ET.

The Iron Cowboy also heralds the second PBR Majors Pre-Show presented by B&W Trailer Hitches. The pre-show will air live at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday with the Iron Cowboy starting at 9:30 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network. Two-time PBR World Champion Justin McBride, along with Cody Lambert, one of the founding members of the PBR and its current livestock director, will handicap the day’s matchups between the riders and bulls.

On Saturday, every rider will take on one bull in each round, striving to make the 8-second buzzer. If a rider successfully covers his bull, he will advance to the next round. If he gets bucked off, he is finished. Through a minimum of two, and a maximum of five rounds, these athletes will continue to ride until one cowboy prevails and is declared the Iron Cowboy.

Two-time and reigning PBR World Champion J.B. Mauney (2015, 2013), leads the four World Champions that will be competing on Saturday. They include Silvano Alves (2011, 2012, 2014), Guilherme Marchi (2008) and Mike Lee (2004).

Alongside the world’s Top 35 bull riders, the winners of four PBR’s BlueDEF Tour events have also been added to the draw this weekend. Juliano Antonio de Silva, winner of Dayton, Ohio; Keyshawn Whitehorse, winner of Salt Lake City; Nevada Newman, winner of Wichita, Kansas; Cody Ford, winner of Yakima, Washington; and Derek Kolbaba, winner of Reno, Nevada; earned their spots on the Iron Cowboy roster with their BlueDEF Tour victories.

The Iron Cowboy kicks off the richest weekend in Western sports history, taking place one day before THE AMERICAN, the sport’s richest one-day rodeo. Tickets, ranging in price from $20 to $500, can be purchased at the AT&T Stadium Box Office, all Ticketmaster locations, ticketmaster.com or by calling (800) 745-3000.

For an exclusive, behind-the-scenes experience, fans can try the PBR Elite Seats. Located in the front row on the 50-yard line of AT&T Stadium, the PBR Elite Seats are priced at $500 and will give fans the VIP experience of a lifetime: a pre-event reception with refreshments, photos with the PBR World Championship trophy and bull riders, 2016 PBR program, backstage tours featuring a PBR 101 presentation, meet-and-greets with the PBR’s exclusive entertainer Flint Rasmussen and top PBR stars, and dirt access following the PBR event. These seats are also on sale now.

On Sunday, 13 PBR bull riders will also participate in THE AMERICAN rodeo; four of whom will have a chance at a $1 million payout. Mason Lowe, Wallace de Oliviera, Robson Palermo and Guilherme Marchi were THE AMERICAN Qualifier Semifinals contestants who qualified for the bull riding portion of the event. As qualifiers, they are eligible for the $1 million bonus. If one of these men wins the bull riding event of THE AMERICAN, they will receive the $1 million bonus or a portion thereof shared with any other qualifiers who win their events at THE AMERICAN.

The Choctaw Casino Iron Cowboy powered by Kawasaki and brought to fans locally by Sonic is the eighth event on the 2016 PBR BFTS schedule. The season will consist of 26 stops, traveling to such cities as Chicago, New York, Anaheim, California, and Nashville. It will culminate in the PBR Built Ford Tough World Finals in Las Vegas on Nov. 2-6 when the 2016 PBR World Champion, the bull rider who earns the most world standings points during the season, will receive the coveted World Championship belt buckle and $1 million bonus.

The BFTS is televised every week on CBS, CBS Sports Network and networks around the world. Television ratings for PBR on CBS are up more than 25 percent this season compared to last year at this time, according to Nielsen. BFTS telecasts are produced for the PBR under a multi-year agreement with David Neal Productions, a Los Angeles-based production company led by 34-time Emmy® Award winner and Peabody Award winner David Neal, who serves as executive producer.