Does the sports media dis rodeo?

I get that impression. There are obvious exceptions, but they prove the rule.

Why is this?

 

Every try to interview a bull?

 

Same reason they dis NASCAR. . . the redneck/hick perception of the athletes, and rodeo doesn't have NASCAR's fanbase to force coverage.

I love covering rodeo. The cowboys are way more helpful than most other athletes I've dealt with, and they're often short enough that I can look 'em in the eye without getting neck strain, which is kinda nice.

 

Excellent

 

My experience is that it is awfully hard to do anything in advance because the cowboys are travelling to so many different rodeos they rarely are in town in advance to talk to and what passes for PR people aren't very good at setting up phoners.

 

Also, about the phoners, best to use a land line, not a cellphone...less chance of phone being eaten or thrown in toilet.

 

Bingo.

I've covered rodeo on high and low levels. You can get credentials to events pretty easily, but with the athletes here one day, gone the next, and competing in three or four different rodeos at the same time during a week, it's hard to chase people down.

Having only one or two events in the area per year there's not much reason to have a beat writer assigned to cover it heavily. And, of course, a lot of the sports writers don't know the sport much.

That said, and I've worked in some very cowboy-friendly areas, I've never heard of a call from a reader asking for more coverage.

I like rodeo a couple of times a year. It's fun to cover, the cowboys and cowgirls are approachable and good interviews. But it's a lot like bike races, community 5k races or other so-called fringe spots.

 

21, quit monkeying around. This is serious.

 

Jim Murray went to the finals in Las Vegas pretty much every year, I believe, and liked writing about it.

It's a regional thing (well, yeah, a big region), and it's kind of "out of sight, out of mind" when it's not in your town.

AP doesn't cover it with any consistency that I'm aware of.

That's a couple of the reasons.

 

Used to work in a town that had a big rodeo week every year, and we covered the piss out of it.

Granted, I hated every minute of it...I'm more or less a hippie when it comes to animals and the exploitation thereof, which also helps explain why I wouldn't cross the street to watch the Kentucky Derby, even if I was being paid to do so.

BUT, I was all for covering this thing. There was a lot of community interest, and it would move newspapers. Considering the economic climate in the biz today, I'm all for anything that will help keep folks reading papers as long as it doesn't involve lowering oneself to the lowest common denominator.

 

I see Rodeo standings on the wire on a weekly basis.