Year 40 In Las Vegas: NFR’s Day One Delivers Check Of $18.5 Million To PRCA For Staging Rodeo In Vegas; Opening Day Attendance, 17,362
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The booming voice proclaimed Las Vegas was a cowboy town and night one of the Super Bowl of rodeos kicked off with another sellout of 17,362 NFR fans at Thomas & Mack Center.
It was bareback riding to get the Thursday competition going.
“That man has won $1.7 million eight seconds at a time,” the voice declared with the country accent.
The UNLV campus has an urban feel bounded by commercial roads. But the intramural sports fields house the horses and bulls, with the contestants from ranches and country towns across 26 states helping turn the neon of Las Vegas into the cowboy hats, Wrangler jeans and giant belt buckles of Horse Town USA.
Las Vegas Events, the non-profit events arm of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA), handed over a juicy check of $18,551,956 to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the NFR’s sanctioning body that is the world’s biggest rodeo sanctioning organization.
Las Vegas Events promotes National Finals Rodeo, which has seating capacity of about 17,000 for the nightly performances at Thomas and Mack. As comparison, the NHL Vegas Golden Knights have seating capacity of 17,367 at T-Mobile Arena about two miles to the west. Both Las Vegas Events and the Golden Knights sell tickets to fans who can stand in areas around the respective arenas and soak up the event’s atmosphere.
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