Professional Bull Riding (PBR) and the New York Mavericks are making their way back to New York City next week.
From Jan. 9-11, Madison Square Garden will host the PBR Monster Energy Buck Off at The Garden, presented by Ariat. Riders from the New York Mavericks and the other PBR teams will go head-to-head in an individual competition to see who can ride their bull the best.
During a buck-off, there are no qualifying rides like in a team competition: you get one shot to see if you can stay on the bull for eight seconds.
“Our roots are back to rodeo, where bull riding was part of the seven events that made up a traditional rodeo. The original founders broke bull riding out to stand alone as a product, and it was individual against individual,” said Sean Gleason, CEO and Commissioner of PBR. “What you’re going to see in Madison Square Garden is what we’ve been doing for 34 years now: the best individual, the best bull riders in the world against the best bulls on the planet, and it’s mano a mano.”
For the New York Mavericks’ team captain, Marco Rizzo, preparing for the buck-off is no different than preparing for a team competition.
“It’s a different setting, but the job kind of stays the same. You have to ride your bull just like every other weekend. I guess the feeling changes a little bit, it’s a big event,” said Rizzo. “The crowd’s gonna be rocking in that building. The preparation stays the same, but the feeling and the pressure change a little bit for sure. But everything else just kind of keeps the job simple: stay on your bull and have some fun.”
“The basics are still the same, whether you’re in teams or whether you’re in the individual season, it still boils down to you just staying on your bull,” said New York Maverick’s Bob Mitchell. “The basics really don’t change, but the mindset changes over.”
As a part of the fun, on Jan. 9, the Mavericks will take on the Carolina Cowboys in the PBR Monster Energy Team Challenge.
“A lot of the people in New York believe that New York is the greatest city there is, and I agree with that. So when we go there, the expectation is to win, so there is a little bit more pressure, and just for my teammates, there’s a little bit more pressure because I have to do my job for the other guys as well,” said Rizzo.
Despite PBR itself being relatively new in the grand scheme of New York sports, professional bull riding has been captivating the NYC audience. PBR has worked to introduce bull riding to the city, slowly working its way in by advertising on taxis to look like bulls and continued to create roots in New York. Arturo di Modica, the artist behind Wall Street’s “Charging Bull,” created a special trophy for PBR’s first event at MSG, which was a miniature replica of the statue.
Gleason says a lot of exposure came from when PBR bucked bulls in Times Square in front of NASDAQ.
“After that year, we just started seeing crowds get bigger and bigger to the point where now we sell out three days at Madison Square Garden, and not a lot of sports can say that,” said Gleason.
Next weekend, fans can expect a high-energy time that will get their adrenaline pumping.
“The one thing that we say, and it’s not really a cliché to us, but the fans pay for the entire seat and they only use the front edge of it; we want them entertained the whole time that we’re there,” said Gleason. “We want them to walk away with an appreciation for the athletes in the sport, both the human and the bull athletes, and walk away with an appreciation for what they do and have an experience that harkens back to the history and the heritage of this country.”
“The bulls are living, breathing animals that have a mind of their own, and can do whatever they want, so when you come to a PBR, it keeps you on the edge of your seat because you never know what’s gonna happen next,” said Mitchell.
“It doesn’t get better than New York. The crowd’s different there. The historic building we get to ride in — it’s gonna be fun,” said Rizzo.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit pbr.com/tours/unleash-the-beast/2026/new-york-ny.
