Thursday, June 12, 2003 | 10:56 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
AT A GLANCE
If you have ever wondered what would happen if Cheyenne, Wyo., were to ask Park Avenue out on a date, you should have been at the MGM Grand lobby Wednesday afternoon before the kickoff news conference for this weekend's Pace Picante ProRodeo Series Finale at the Grand Garden.
Outside the main entrance, stretch limousines dueled with extended cab pickup trucks for position in the valet lanes while inside, slender men in snug-fitting blue jeans and black cowboy hats snapped photographs of everything that moved -- especially the statuesque blondes sporting bare midriffs.
These were women with attitude, not Elly May Clampett-types, which got me to thinking that this had to be the biggest showdown between marble and denim since Ol' Jed loaded up the truck and moved to Bever-lee.
But it also is indicative of where pro rodeo is headed under its visionary and corporate-minded commissioner Steve Hatchell.
"We want to become more mainstream," Hatchell said while removing his cowboy hat that, frankly, does little to conceal that he's not a real one.
Along with the creases in their jeans and the shiny Tony Lamas, you can usually spot the urban cowboys that way. But that doesn't mean that Hatchell isn't the right man for the job. You could tell that he's not full of mechanical bull by the way contestants sidled up to greet him or shake his hand on their way to the registration desk.
Hatchell is the guy responsible for creating the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's lucrative made-for-TV tours that have stuffed the best cowboys' saddlebags with the kind of greenbacks that not even Bret Maverick could imagine. For instance, this weekend's Winter Tour finale, which will air on tape delay on a little network called CBS, features a purse of $500,000. That's a five and five zeroes. Half a mil.
You can feed a lot of chickens with that kind of scratch. Thanks to Hatchell's efforts, cowboys don't have to sing about a home on the range anymore. They can buy one. With a two-truck garage.
As in everything else in sports, the prize money goes hand in hand with the television deals that Hatchell has struck with CBS, ESPN and the Outdoor Life Network (OLN), and the sponsors that have climbed on board as a result of TV.
When Hatchell took over, there was just 46 hours of annual rodeo programming, with most of it originating from Mesquite, Texas, and shown on ESPN in the wee hours of the morning, long after Dan Patrick's bedtime.
Other than National Finals Rodeo highlights, an occasional montage of bull riding crashes on the George Michael Sports Machine or those old Miller Lite commercial featuring former world champion cowboy Jim Shoulders, that was about the only time you'd ever see rodeo on the tube.
Hatchell's eight seconds of fame was attracting CBS, which has agreed to a multiyear deal to cover the final rounds of major rodeos leading up to the NFR, such as this weekend's Winter Tour finale at the MGM.
"More TV, more dollars to the cowboys," Hatchell said when asked to identify the major achievements of his five years in office.
"We've got 23 million people who watch rodeos in person and a TV audience of 50 million. And we expect it to grow more, because of TV."
Naturally, with all that growing there have been pains, and Hatchell has his detractors. Old-timers charge him with trying to run the PRCA in the manner of the NFL or NBA, and say that the TV events have put some of the grassroots rodeos out of business. With cowboys able to collect big bucks in the TV rodeos, there's no need for many of them to chase small dollars in tumbleweed towns anymore.
You can understand why that might upset old Marlboro men who dig fence-post holes for a living. But when strapping, aptly named Cash Myers walked up to punch Hatchell on the arm Wednesday, he didn't look too upset. Maybe that's because he earned more than $200,000 roping calves last year, which might have had something to do with his smile that was wider than his home state of Texas.
I think I heard Myers say something about seeing Hatchell later, at a reception they were having at the cee-ment pond.
Only he called it a swimming pool.
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