PBR Teams turns Amerant Bank Arena into a dirt-covered mix of elite athletes, angry bulls, fire, music and an audience that quickly becomes part of the show.

August 9th, 2026

Eight seconds.

That is the magic number.

Eight seconds sounds ridiculously short. You can barely decide what you want for dinner in eight seconds. Inside Amerant Bank Arena, however, eight seconds can feel like an eternity when a rider is desperately trying to remain attached to a bucking bull that has absolutely no interest in cooperating.

Welcome to the Professional Bull Riders.

Or, more specifically, welcome to PBR Teams, where the traditionally individual sport has been reimagined around five-rider teams, head-to-head games and standings that give newcomers something immediately familiar to follow.

For anyone expecting an afternoon consisting simply of cowboys taking turns riding bulls, Freedom Days presented by Breedlove Wound Care quickly offered a correction.

There were flames.

There was music.

There were cowboy hats and blue jeans seemingly everywhere.

There were fans drinking water out of a boot, strangers belting out unfinished song lyrics together, military recognition and enough arena production to make you occasionally forget that several thousand pounds of irritated livestock were waiting backstage.

And, yes, there was some pretty spectacular bull riding.

Welcome to the Team

Outside Amerant Bank Arena, South Florida offered another partly cloudy August afternoon. Inside, the home of the Florida Panthers had undergone a much more dramatic climate change.

The familiar ice was nowhere to be found. Dirt covered the arena floor. Chutes surrounded the competition area. Giant video boards displayed riders, bulls and matchups while cowboy hats dotted the seats throughout the building.

Among them were plenty of people experiencing PBR for the first time.

That matters because PBR Teams is surprisingly easy to understand even if your previous bull-riding knowledge begins and ends with knowing that staying on is preferable to falling off.

Rather than every rider competing solely for himself, each team sends out five riders. Successful rides contribute to the team’s aggregate score, and when one rider falls short, suddenly the pressure shifts to the next teammate.

At its simplest?

Stay on the bull for eight seconds.

At its most complicated?

Good luck with that.

The opening presentation made it immediately apparent this wasn’t going to be a quiet afternoon at the rodeo. Riders lined up across the dirt, flames erupted nearby and the production leaned into the spectacle before settling into the competition.

Austin Gamblers rider Dalton Kasel had perhaps the best description for the whole thing when I spoke with him.

A kid-friendly rock concert.

“You’ve got the pyro, and there’s something for everybody,” Kasel said. “Whether or not you’re a bull riding fan, just the atmosphere that it brings here is unbelievable, and you’ll have a good time.”

After spending an afternoon inside Amerant Bank Arena, it was difficult to argue with him.

Bull Riding Wasn’t Supposed to Be Kasel’s Sport

Kasel’s own path to PBR makes him particularly suited to explaining its appeal to newcomers.

He wasn’t born into a rodeo family.

He grew up playing traditional sports, including football and basketball. Bull riding entered his life almost accidentally when he and his father would watch football on television and PBR would come on afterward.

Eventually, Kasel wanted to try it himself.

His parents understandably required some convincing.

“I didn’t grow up in a rodeo family whatsoever,” Kasel said. “We all played sports growing up, and it took me forever to convince my parents to let me get on.”

They finally relented when he was 14.

Kasel promptly rode the bull.

So much for scaring the idea out of him.

“I was like, ‘Ah, I got this. This is what I want,’” he recalled.

Today, he’s part of the Austin Gamblers and competing in a version of PBR that feels considerably closer to the team sports he played growing up.

That team element was on full display throughout Sunday’s five-game card at Amerant Bank Arena.

Sometimes Eight Seconds Requires Another Look

The Kansas City Outlaws’ matchup against the Missouri Thunder offered one of the afternoon’s better examples of how quickly strategy can enter the equation.

Kansas City’s Natanael Serra Aires recorded an 89.35-point ride aboard Baldy. Missouri challenged the qualified ride, sending officials to replay to determine whether the eight-second requirement had actually been met.

The replay confirmed the ride.

Missouri lost its challenge.

Kansas City eventually carried a 266.9–179 advantage into Missouri’s final opportunity. Kade Madsen needed an 89-point ride to give the Thunder a chance to steal the game.

High Cotton had other plans.

Madsen was bucked off in 3.65 seconds, securing Kansas City’s victory.

It was one of those moments that makes the team format click for someone watching it for the first time.

One rider.

One bull.

One final opportunity.

Suddenly those eight seconds become awfully long.

The Bulls Have Records, Too

Then came Slick Rick.

During Nashville Stampede’s matchup with the New York Mavericks, Daniel Feitosa drew a bull carrying a statistic that sounded almost absurd.

Thirty outs.

Thirty victories for the bull.

Nobody had successfully ridden Slick Rick in 30 attempts dating back to March 2023.

Feitosa changed that.

He stayed aboard and earned 89.95 points, ending Slick Rick’s streak while helping Nashville dismantle New York 356.3–89.55.

For fans unfamiliar with PBR, moments like that also help shift the perspective. The rider isn’t the only athlete entering the arena with a reputation.

The bull does, too.

Kasel understands that better than most because he raises bucking bulls himself.

“They get treated the best,” he said. “The amount of care that goes into each and every one is absolutely amazing.”

Then Kasel found a slightly less scientific way to make his point.

“I guarantee you my bulls eat better than I do. They’re on a better diet. They eat healthier than I do. They can’t have the Zebra Cakes that I can have.”

There may not be a better nutritional comparison in professional sports.

Kasel likens bucking bulls to racehorses, animals bred for their athletic abilities. He is also fascinated enough by the animals that he studies them closely rather than trying to avoid information about an upcoming opponent.

“I watch every single bull buck because I love watching how it works,” he said. “A lot of people don’t want to know, but I love watching the animals, so I want to know what they do.”

“None of this that you see, how these bulls buck, is man-made,” he added. “This is all their natural ability.”

Watching Feitosa finally solve Slick Rick provided a pretty convincing demonstration of just how formidable that ability can be.

Nashville nearly went perfect against New York, covering four of five bulls. The victory completed a 3-0 weekend for the Stampede and extended the team’s franchise-record winning streak to seven games.

Nobody Sits Around Waiting for the Next Bull

Yet focusing solely on scores misses a huge part of why PBR works as live entertainment.

The downtime frequently became part of the show.

At one point, multiple fans were brought into a competition involving drinking from a boot for the chance to win a pair of boots. Ultimately, an 18-year-old celebrating her birthday took the prize after downing water from the decidedly unconventional drinking vessel.

Happy birthday.

Here’s a boot.

Another break turned into an impromptu arena concert.

Two fans were selected for a game in which they had to continue singing when the music suddenly stopped. The Busch Light was flowing, but it was the banter between the in-arena host and contestants that made the segment work.

Then something better happened.

The audience started helping.

When the songs stopped, thousands of voices picked up the missing lyrics, creating a massive chorus around Amerant Bank Arena.

There was also time set aside to recognize members of the military, adding another dimension to an afternoon that rarely allowed the energy inside the building to disappear.

That’s where Kasel’s “kid-friendly rock concert” description begins making a lot of sense.

The competition is serious.

The environment doesn’t have to be.

Five Games, Plenty of Drama

Sunday began with the Arizona Ridge Riders defeating the Texas Rattlers 173.15–90.2. Everton Natan da Silva’s 87.6-point ride ultimately proved to be the game winner as Arizona completed a perfect weekend in Sunrise.

Kansas City’s victory over Missouri followed before Nashville continued its rampage through the young season.

The Austin Gamblers then dominated the Oklahoma Wildcatters 350.45–173.1, covering four bulls. Dener Barbosa, Sage Steele Kimzey, Jose Vitor Leme and Kaique Pacheco all produced scores as Austin evened its record at 4-4.

That left the hometown finale.

The Florida Freedom entered Sunday with an opportunity to complete an undefeated weekend at Amerant Bank Arena, but the defending champion Carolina Cowboys spoiled the party.

Brothers Thiago and Adriano Salgado delivered scores of 88.35 and 87.55, respectively, while Guilherme Valleiras added an 87.95-point re-ride.

Florida struggled to answer.

Austin Richardson, Vinicius Rodrigues Pereira and Boudreaux Campbell all bucked off. Alex Cerqueira came painfully close at 7.64 seconds before Florida used a re-ride, but Caynyon Jolly couldn’t convert it.

Finally, in Florida’s last out of the afternoon, Bruno Carvalho gave the home crowd something to celebrate, covering Husky for 89.5 points.

Carolina won 263.85–89.5, denying Florida the perfect home weekend.

More Than Eight Seconds

When the dirt settled, Nashville left Sunrise sitting alone atop the PBR Teams standings at 7-1. Arizona, Florida and Carolina each stood at 5-3, with the Ridge Riders holding second based on aggregate points.

But the standings only explain part of what happened inside Amerant Bank Arena.

PBR Teams succeeds because you don’t necessarily need to arrive knowing Daniel Feitosa from Dalton Kasel or Slick Rick from an actual slick Rick.

You learn quickly.

The video boards tell you who’s riding. The team format gives you someone to root for. The clock gives you something to watch. The announcers and host keep you involved. The music keeps pounding. The fire keeps erupting.

And every time a chute opens, the premise becomes beautifully simple again.

Can he make it eight seconds?

Kasel also recognizes that the entire spectacle ultimately depends upon the people willing to buy a ticket and find out.

“People spend the money they work hard to make to come watch us do what we love,” he said. “That’s how we support our family. It’s neat how it’s a full circle.”

There is something fitting about hearing that from a guy who discovered PBR because it happened to come on television after football.

Kasel kept watching.

Then he climbed onto a bull at 14.

Years later, thousands of people wearing cowboy hats and blue jeans walked into a hockey arena in South Florida to watch him and his fellow riders compete as teammates.

Some were longtime fans.

Several were experiencing PBR for the first time.

And after an afternoon of flames, music, laughter, sing-alongs, upsets and 2,000-pound athletes doing everything possible to make eight seconds feel like an eternity, it became pretty easy to understand why Kasel never changed the channel.