WME-IMG earlier this year "placed a big bet" on PBR, purchasing the series for around $120M, and the entertainment company believes it "may have gotten a deal," according to Sean Gregory of TIME. The rise of "extreme sports and mixed martial arts has shown that there's an appetite for live events that put fans closer to the action." Bull riding is "becoming the latest example" and has "evolved into a global media player." PBR "now stages events at arenas in urban centers" like N.Y., Chicago and Las Vegas, where the Built Ford Tough Series World Finals begins today, as well as in countries including Australia, Brazil and Mexico. WME-IMG "plans to take the show to China in an attempt to hook that increasingly important market." To make WME-IMG's bet "pay off, bull riding will have to push even further into the mainstream -- without alienating the longtime fans who have supported it from the start." One of the sport's main selling points "is its danger," as every attempted ride is a "potential eight-second car wreck." Riders are "bucked off more often than not ... and the split-second drama makes for appealing theater, ideal for a short-attention-span, viral-sharing age." WME-IMG "licenses merchandise for some 200 colleges around the country," and rather than "handling it itself, PBR can now outsource that work to a company with nearly 5,000 employees in more than 25 countries." PBR CEO Sean Gleason said, "You'll see a pretty aggressive expansion of licensed products that carry the PBR brand." But Gregory notes WME-IMG also "sees room to make the show better." WME-IMG Chief Content Officer Mark Shapiro: "In the future you can see us putting sensors on our bulls or sensors on our riders so that when you're watching at home, you can see their blood pressure, you can see the amount of strength that a bull is using" (TIME, 10/26 issue).
