The Texas Rattlers, Fort Worth’s PBR Team, are riding into Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena this weekend for the PBR Camping World Team Series Championship, and I’m surprised to say that I’m totally psyched.
Ranked third out of 10, the Rattlers received the final first-round bye to avoid Friday’s slate of opening matches. So, their championship run technically kicks off Saturday.
While I don’t want to give away all of my rooting interests within professional sports, I’ll admit that it’s been a minute since one of “my teams” has had a legitimate shot at hoisting a trophy at the end of the year. While, yes, the Texas Rattlers brought home the Team Series Championship in 2023 — the league’s second year — at that time, I was a casual fan who attended the occasional rodeo event but was generally indifferent to the outcome. And my newfound appreciation and enjoyment of the sport sparked some self-reflection.
Examining the sport of bull riding, which, one could argue is the self-assured yet potentially self-destructive decision to hop on the back of a raging bovine, it’s a competition of one man versus one bull. The bull, inevitably, always wins; the man only claims victory for surviving a mere eight seconds on its back.
Now, I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but no matter who’s gutsy enough to risk it for the brisket — whether they’re local, national, or originally from another hemisphere — while at a rough stock event, I’m in a perpetual state of rooting for the guy to cross that eight-second threshold. Even if I’m ultimately pulling for another rider to win, I find it nearly impossible to not lift my butt out of my seat, exclaim “yeah” in my outside voice, and frantically clap as that clock strikes seven, hoping a solid cheer pushes them past the finish line.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a big part of what makes rodeos so dang fun. Your interest is piqued with every ride, and you appreciate anyone’s incredible ability to hang the hell on. But I recently discovered something that makes bull riding even more fun: teams.
Despite my having lived in Fort Worth for seven years — a solid four years before PBR introduced its Teams Series — I had never been to a PBR Teams event at Dickies Arena. Dubbed Rattler Days, which serves as the annual home game for the Texas Rattlers, the three-day event has each of the league’s 10 teams face off, one-on-one (mano a mano y toro a toro), each night. And on this the event’s second night, Sept. 27, the Rattlers were facing off against in-state rival Austin Gamblers.
Feeling a little demoralized over the United States’ lackluster Saturday Ryder Cup performance — the team was down a historic margin to the Euros — I was hoping the Rattlers would continue their incredible at-home unbeaten streak (10-0) to lift my spirits. Of course, my disappointing Saturday continued after the Gamblers managed to end the Rattlers’ undefeated home record. The Austin-based team also took home the Texas Cup, a rivalry trophy awarded to the team with the best record in their head-to-head matchups — adding insult to injury.
But what I found most shocking wasn’t the loss, but rather how much the loss legitimately put me in a bit of a stupor. I’ve never left Dickies Arena so let down — the natural side effect of caring.
Similar to my reaction from that afternoon’s team version of the normally individual sport of golf, when you add a team element to the mix, things tend to get a little more, well, emotional. And you can feel it in the air. The cheers during the team introductions was like that of an NBA game, and when the Rattlers’ star rider, Brady Fielder, failed to stay on his bull for eight seconds, it sucked the air out of the building. It was akin to Dak Prescott coming up just short on a fourth down.
There was someone to root for and someone to root against. Of course, it’s difficult to outwardly and boisterously cheer when any rider gets bucked, but when the score is close, a slight fist pump to the side when someone on the opposing team doesn’t quite make the eight seconds is unavoidable.
It doesn’t take a psychologist to point out the camaraderie and overwhelming sense of community one feels when cheering for a team. The shared emotional experience everyone in Dickies Arena had on this Saturday night, even if it left a crummy taste in our mouths, was still powerful, thrilling, and absolutely something I want to experience again.
And this same feeling goes for the team itself. According to Rattlers head coach Cody Lambert, who previously rode bulls on a college team and on a team in the now-defunct Winston Pro Tour, “being part of a team is something that gives you a real sense of pride.
“[When I rode for teams], it wasn’t just important to me to do well for the money and for just that feeling of winning, but [I wanted to do well] for my teammates, because it was important to them as well.”
At the team’s next competition in Glendale, Arizona, the Rattlers would bounce back and defeat the No. 1-ranked Florida Freedom in one of their two matches to secure a bye in the first round of the Teams Series Championship in Vegas.
It was during their trip to Glendale that I caught up with Lambert for a chat about the upcoming finals. On whether the team has a strategy going into it, Lambert knows he can only do so much before that chute opens.
“The simple answer is to ride more bulls and to get better scores than the other team,” Lambert says. “The strategy really comes into play when they draw the bulls for us to ride, and we select which rider rides which bull. And we have so much depth on our roster that we’re bound to leave someone on the bench who could have done well. But the strategy is matching the bulls to the rider and deciding on the order. It’s kind of like a batting order in baseball.”
Saturday, the Rattlers will face the winner of the Arizona Ridge Riders and Missouri Thunder match. If the Rattlers come away victorious, they’ll punch their ticket to Sunday’s semifinal, where the bracket has a potential rematch with the Austin Gamblers.
“We want to win every single game,” Lambert says “I guess I’m saying yes [it’s an important rivalry] and no [it’s all just meant to hype the game]. I mean, we’ve played 12 games [at Dickies Arena] and lost one, and the one we lost happened to be against the Austin Gamblers. Make no mistake, we want to beat them, and they want to beat us.”
Well, as someone who can now officially speak from a fan’s perspective, the fans certainly feel the rivalry. Like every sport, there are just those guys you cannot stand to lose to. And if there’s any poetic justice to this season, the Rattlers’ road to their second Team Series Championship goes right through the Gamblers.
You can catch the Rattlers’ opening playoff match on The CW Network, Saturday, at 9:15 p.m.