Cody Joins Bidding War For Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association

A bidding war for the PRCA appears to have begun in Wyoming. Cody has thrown its hat into the ring with an invitation for rodeo officials to visit the self-proclaimed "Rodeo Capital of the World."

Mike Darby, a board member for the Park County Travel Council, confirmed to Cowboy State Daily that Cody has extended an invitation to the PRCA to visit the city and see what the Yellowstone National Park neighbor has to offer.

“We’ve started a little bit behind everyone else,” Darby told Cowboy State Daily. “But we’ve got a great site picked out, and we’re offering them to come visit, see what we have, and see how it works out. I mean the worst thing they can do is say no, right?”

Getting them to come to Wyoming is first and foremost, Darby added, but he believes Cody would be worth considering.

“We’re a great tourist town,” he said. “We have plus or minus a million tourists come through town every year, and they’re all looking for something to do. They’re interested in our western lifestyle. I think it’d be a great fit. The Hall of Fame is just tremendous, and it’d go great with our Buffalo Center of the West.”

Mayor Lee Ann Reiter seconded the idea that Cody would be a great fit for the PRCA Rodeo and Hall of Fame. 

“Cody is the personification of western culture and the perfect fit for the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame,” she told Cowboy State Daily in an email. “Cody is a destination location for the sport of rodeo, where the Rodeo Hall of Fame would become a priority for local residents and visitors alike.”

PRCA Is Taking Cody Seriously, Along With Others

PRCA Chief Marketing Officer Paul Woody told Cowboy State Daily the PRCA board is meeting Wednesday and Thursday and has close to a dozen different options it is considering. Those options do include staying right where it is.

“There’s more than one and less than a dozen (offers) in varying degrees of seriousness,” he said. “The number of inquiries is closer to that dozen number, and the number of serious, written offers for the board to consider is somewhere significantly less than that.”

Woody said that Cody’s pitch is perceived as having merit, and is among those getting serious consideration. 

“That tourist option for being in Cody has an attractive nature to it,” he said. “When you’re at the Gateway to Yellowstone, you’ve got the foot traffic and the number of people who come through that town, the self-proclaimed rodeo capital. I think that all has merit.”

So, too, does the fact that Cody offers rodeo every single night of the summer.

“The opportunity to get showcased alongside a nightly rodeo is something that would be, I’d say one of the bargaining chips in that proposal from Cody,” he said. 

However, Woody added, there’s more to consider than just the tourist aspect for the Hall of Fame.

“This is the headquarters of a 6,000-person membership association,” he said. “So there’s a lot to consider beyond the opportunity to showcase the what makes the West the West.”

Texas In Play, Along With Colorado

Woody stressed that PRCA hasn’t been the one pursuing change, and won’t proceed unless it makes sense to do so.

“If it does make sense, that will be something that is hard for employees and membership,” he said. “But sometimes leadership has to make difficult decisions for the long-term gain of membership.”

The fact that Wyoming has already stepped up with an offer of $15 million for moving expenses is significant, Woody said, and not something any other states, including Texas, have yet offered.

“Texas has been involved in several different conversations,” Woody said. “But I don’t know that anything has risen to a legislative decision yet like Wyoming.”

But Colorado Springs has also been talking to the PRCA about staying, he added.

“(They’ve) had their foot in the door,” he said. “(The PRCA is) a prized, prized citizen of this city and county, and they don’t want to see us go anywhere. So they’ve scrambled hard, and we’ll see what they come up with to make the decision hard, whether it’s Texas or Cody or Cheyenne or any of the other folks that have made offers to us.”

Day And Nite Rodeo

Cody lays claim to being the only town in America that hosts nightly rodeo performances and bills itself as the Rodeo Capital of the World.

The town’s rodeo roots hark back to Buffalo Bill Cody, the town’s namesake, and his Wild West Show, which held rodeo tryouts for Cody’s show behind the Irma Hotel in what is now the historic hotel’s parking lot.

While Cody’s Wild West Show was typically shown elsewhere, rodeos and parades quickly became staples of the community’s cultural fabric.

In 1913, not long before Cody died, the last Wild West Show performance was held. There was also one last parade and rodeo in Cody, to entertain the Prince of Monaco.  

A couple of years after Cody died in 1917, Clarence Williams led an initiative to establish the Cody Stampede rodeo, to preserve the “Old West” that Buffalo Bill had always championed.

The first, inaugural event was timed to coincide with the opening of Yellowstone National Park’s east gate. The following year, under Caroline Lockhart’s leadership, the event moved to the Fourth of July, where it has been ever since.

Cody’s Nite Rodeo was added in 1938 by Carly Downing, a former Wild West Show performer, extending and adding a new dimension to Cody’s rodeo scene with nightly performances during the summer.

Cody has a long history of helping to develop world-class talent over the years, including legends like Jim Houston, Chris LeDoux, Tom Ferguson, Deb Greenough, and Dan Mortensen.

World champion bull rider Freckles Brown also got his start at Cody Nite Rodeo, as did Mel Stonehouse, a top competitor in the 1930s and 1940s, along with legendary Wyoming bucking horse “Come Apart.”

Good Fit

Having the PRCA headquarters right next to the Cody Stampede would be a hand-in-glove fit, Darby believes, with plenty of growing room for the PRCA, which has become surrounded by development at its long-time Colorado home in Colorado Springs.

“I mean, we’ve got an extra outdoor arena, we’ve got some raw ground next to the highway,” Darby said. ”Utilities are right there, so, it’d be a great fit. And it’s on the road to Yellowstone.”

Darby is aware Cody won’t be the only community also reaching out to the PRCA, now that it’s become public knowledge the organization could be interested in moving.

“I could see Fort Worth getting excited about it,” he said. “Who knows where else.”

That’s a sentiment Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, also expressed recently, during meetings of the Joint Appropriations Committee, which was deciding whether to approve Gov. Mark Gordon’s request for $15 million to assist PRCA with moving expenses to Wyoming, with $3 million immediately payable as soon as the PRCA governing body approves a move to Cheyenne.

“I can tell you this, the PRCA has been approached by multiple other states, multiple other towns, multiple other entities,” Driskill said when the funding was being considered. “It is a cherry project that everybody wants.” 

Cheyenne LEADS, a nonprofit, private economic development entity, has also already committed $15 million to the effort, which makes Wyoming’s bid $30 million strong, if the legislature ultimately approves its $15 million contribution.

Tight Competition

Given the kind of competition vying to flag the PRCA’s attention now, Darby believes the best thing Wyoming can do is make sure the PRCA is seeing all the opportunities available to it in Wyoming, not just one community’s.

“We’d have a lot to contribute, and I think we deserve a look,” Darby said. “I hope we get it, but I sincerely hope that Wyoming gets it.”

Mayor Reiter, meanwhile, said she believes Cody’s amenities would dovetail well with the PRCA, like the community’s established museum culture which already nurtures Buffalo Bill Center of the West and Old Trail Town. 

“Cody has five-star capacity to welcome visitors worldwide and be on the forefront of representing the ‘Cowboy State,’” she said. “Cody is the perfect location for everything rodeo.”

Darby added that he’d be open to helping other communities attract the PRCA instead, if they ultimately passed on Cody. 

To him the most important thing is just making sure it locates somewhere in Wyoming. 

“I think Cheyenne’s really got their ducks in a row,” he said. “They got ahead of us, and I wish them well. And if they were to ask, I would help them.”

That’s a sentiment Wyoming Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Dale Steenberger, who was formerly Cheyenne’s Chamber of Commerce president and CEO, also echoed.

“I think it’s wonderful that every community in Wyoming kind of lays it out to say, ‘Hey, here’s what we have to offer’ and demonstrating their community pride,” he said. “At the end of the day, we are all in the same boat. It’s going to sink or float together.

"So, if we can get something like this to the state of Wyoming and it benefits our people … I mean of course, as a chamber director in Cheyenne, I’m always going to wish the best for my community. But I want to wish the best for the whole state, because that’s what’s good for it. So, I hope we land it in our state.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.