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...have to do is last eight excruciating seconds on an agitated 1,800-lb. animal that would like nothing more than to smash you against the sideboards of the arena, fling you off its back and gore you with its horns. On the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) tour, concussions and broken bones are as common as Wranglers and brass-buckled belts. "Most bull riders are what you call gristleheads," says Mike Lee, 23, who has won $2 million in five years of riding. "If you're intelligent, you wouldn't do it." Win the PBR World Championship, though...
...began in 1992, when a group of 20 riders broke away from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and formed their own tour (rodeo also includes events like steer wrestling). Today it's a $46 million business, and revenue has grown 150% over the past five years. From 2003 to '05, the tour's adult fan base soared 48%, to 18 million, far outpacing the growth of nascar or any other major sport, according to Scarborough Research. Sponsorship revenue has nearly tripled since 2000, to $22.5 million. Advertisers like Yamaha seem to be betting that bull riding will...
Perhaps the smartest thing the tour did was to recognize that the bulls, not the riders, are the stars. Fans show up to see the fiercest bovine in the land. The tour promotes the bulls with merchandise like T shirts, dolls and bobbleheads, which sell better than any rider-themed goods. (The first bull to sign an autograph will make a killing.) "The bulls should be more famous than us," says two-time champ Adriano Moraes. "They're better athletes." They also have better names, which reflect their personalities. Bodacious, a bull who died in 2000, was the Babe Ruth...
...broken legs) EARNINGS $3,100 $28,000 $26,000 $7,000 $9,000 $2 million *The percentage of rides in which the bull tosses the rider before 8 sec. For Moraes, it's the percentage of rides in which he has been bucked. One of the smallest on the tour, he may not intimidate. But riders can't solve his bucking patterns. Owner Jerry Nelson bought the top bull of '05 for $15,000. He just sold a 50% stake for $500,000. Gets stronger and grumpier with age. Talk to him in the pen, and he could throw...
...broiling day in August almost a decade later, Shakur offers me a tour of her newly constructed ranch home in Lumberton, N.C. She shows off a bathroom the size of a small apartment and talks up the 56 acres of farmland where she's growing USDA-certified organic crops and raising animals. That is what her son has left her. And it's easy to see what she gave him. She is excitable and charismatic, and she talks--and curses--freely, laughing in the middle of crying. In the late '60s, Shakur was one of the more outspoken black power...