SPECIAL TO THE SUN
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The world's top-ranked cowboys and cowgirls will meet Friday at the Thomas & Mack Center for the first round of the $3.2 million National Finals Rodeo, the world championships of professional rodeo.
The NFR consists of 10 consecutive rounds; the first nine begin at 6:45 p.m. and the final round is slated to begin at 11:45 a.m. on Dec. 15.
The NFR is the year-end finale of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the largest and most prestigious rodeo-sanctioning body in the world. Contestants from the United States and Canada compete throughout the year -- many of them at more than 100 rodeos annually -- in hopes of finishing the regular season ranked in the top 15 of the Crown Royal World Standings in their respective events.
Only the top 15 in each PRCA event -- bareback riding, calf roping, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping (heading and heeling) and bull riding -- the top 15 in Women's Professional Rodeo Association barrel racing and the top six bullfighters in the Wrangler Bullfight Tour qualify to compete for world titles in Las Vegas.
For the third consecutive year Wrangler World of Rodeo, aired on ESPN and ESPN2, will provide same-day coverage and next-day replays of all 10 rounds. Action from the first seven nights will air on ESPN2, and the final three rounds will appear on ESPN.
The first NFR was in 1959 in Dallas and offered a modest purse of $50,000. Now, 37 years later in Las Vegas, the rodeo's multi-million-dollar purse ranks it quite favorably among such premier sporting events as The Masters golf tournament, the Breeder's Cup Classic and the Kentucky Derby.
And while not every qualifier pockets a fortune under the Thomas & Mack lights, a few will grab lottery-type figures with prime-time performances in Las Vegas. In 1992, saddle bronc rider Billy Etbauer of Ree Heights, S.D., pulled in a single-event record $101,531 at the NFR en route to a $184,675 season and the world saddle bronc riding championship. Etbauer, 33, enters the 1996 championships leading his event standings with $123,953 in regular-season earnings and has a solid chance to become the first single-event contestant to top $200,000 in annual earnings.
Six-time world all-around champion Ty Murray of Stephenville, Texas, topped $200,000 five times from 1990-94 while competing in saddle bronc riding, bareback riding and bull riding. But for the last two seasons he's been sidelined, and this year, as last, he will again help call the action on the Wrangler World of Rodeo telecast.
The Thomas & Mack seats 16,500 spectators in its rodeo configuration and every single NFR seat has been sold for months. However, each morning of the Finals, about 500 standing room only tickets are sold, which pushes the 10-day total attendance to more than 170,000.
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