Professional Bull Riders said sponsorship revenue for PBR Teams has risen 386% since the league launched in 2022 and is up another 13% year over year as it enters its fifth season. The league said it now has 21 national partners, including Auris with the Oklahoma Wildcatters, Energy Transfer with the Arizona Ridge Riders, Go Bowling with the New York Mavericks and a renewed deal between Ariat and the Texas Rattlers. PBR also pointed to a sold-out stadium event at Florida State’s Doak Campbell Stadium in March as part of the league’s growth.

The 2026 season begins this weekend with Bulls and Beats at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado, the first neutral-site opener in PBR Teams history and the first of 12 regular-season events in a 35-game schedule. The July 10-12 opening weekend includes concerts by Brad Paisley, Bailey Zimmerman and Miranda Lambert, and it will be shown on FOX Nation and The CW. The launch comes after the Carolina Cowboys’ 2025 championship and with the Florida Freedom entering the season atop the regular-season standings.

The league said the 2026 season will air on CBS, Paramount+ and The CW, with about 100 hours of live coverage across the regular season, playoffs and championship. The first weekend features matchups including the Carolina Cowboys against the Nashville Stampede and the Austin Gamblers against the Kansas City Outlaws, while Oklahoma opens under new head coach Greg Rhodes and Kansas City plans a larger role for Cassio Dias. PBR said it plans to expand from 10 teams to 12 in 2027 and will return to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in November for the fifth straight championship there.

Blake Sharp closed the PBR World Finals at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth by winning his fourth straight PBR Stock Contractor of the Year award and immediately proposing onstage to his longtime girlfriend, Dr. Caitlin Wenzel. After accepting the award, Sharp proposed and Wenzel answered “hell yes,” drawing cheers from Sharp’s partners and the World Finals audience.

It was his fourth straight win, a streak that began in 2023. The award recognizes Sharp’s consistent excellence and the respect he has earned within the sport. He runs a stock-contracting business that hauls, conditions and cares for top bucking bulls nationwide.

Sharp is a former East Mississippi Community College lineman who appeared on the first season of Last Chance U, and his football-honed toughness has helped shape his approach to stock contracting.

Ransom edged Pegasus by 0.01 points to claim the YETI PBR World Champion Bull, a razor-thin victory that capped one of the closest title races in PBR history. Ransom finished the calculated season average at 45.96 points to Pegasus’s 45.95, overturning a 0.05-point deficit held by Pegasus before the final short round to secure the crown.

Ransom was crowned at the PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. He was also named the YETI “Built for the Wild” Bull of the Finals for the top combined score across his three World Finals outs.

The bull is owned by D&H Cattle Co. and Flinn. Ransom collected a $100,000 World Champion bonus plus a $25,000 Bull of the Finals award.

The World Champion Bull ranking used each animal’s eight highest-scored outs from the combined 2025 PBR Teams season and this season’s Unleash The Beast regular season, plus two World Finals outs — a formula that produced the 45.96-to-45.95 margin that decided the title.

John Crimber, 20, of Decatur, Texas, clinched the PBR World Championship at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth after sweeping Championship Sunday. He posted a 91.35-point ride on What’s Poppin in a must-ride spot in Round 8 to reach the championship short round, then clinched the world title with a session-topping 92.90-point ride on Tigger in Round 9. Crimber finished Championship Sunday with two round wins and two rides of 90 points or more, overcoming a 0-for-5 start in Fort Worth.

He finished the season 32-for-58 (55.17% ride rate) and earned $1,377,907, which included a $1,000,000 champion’s bonus. Crimber led the tour with eight round wins and two event victories and closed the year 187.83 points ahead of No. 2 Brady Fielder. Fielder finished fourth at the World Finals and was unable to close the gap.

Round 7 at Dickies Arena set the stage for Championship Sunday. Hudson Bolton of Milan, Tennessee led the event aggregate at 618.85 after riding Vindicated for an 86.65 and going a perfect 7-for-7 in the round. Bolton extended his streak to 14 straight qualified rides, earned 26 Unleash The Beast (UTB) points heading into Championship Sunday and set a PBR record for the best start to a World Finals career at 13-for-15. Crimber scored 84.95 on Icky Thump in Round 7 and still led the gold-buckle standings by 128.83 points over Brady Fielder after that round. Michael Lane won Round 7 with an 89.50 on Let’s Roll, and 2022 champion Daylon Swearingen moved into the Top 3 after an 86.60 ride; he was helped off and taken to sports medicine after getting tied up on his dismount.

Hudson Bolton extended his perfect start at the 2026 PBR World Finals to 6-for-6 after Round 6 at Dickies Arena, riding Dirty Honey for 87.25 points. The ride moved him to 12-for-14 all-time at the World Finals, stretched his streak of qualified rides to 13 and earned him 10.5 Unleash The Beast (UTB) points.

He had earlier posted a personal-best 91.30-point ride on Lights Out in Round 5, which moved him to 5-for-5 at the event and 11-for-13 all-time at the World Finals. Bolton, of Milan, Tennessee, said he was “grateful” and was taking the event “one bull at a time.”

Round 6 began at 7:45 p.m. CT, with Paramount+ carrying live coverage at 8 p.m. CT. The session produced 19 qualified rides, the most of the event’s six sessions to that point. Thiago Salgado won the session with a 90.05-point ride on Oyster Creek Brawler and earned 59 UTB points for his third round victory of the season. John Crimber snapped a 0-for-5 World Finals slump by riding July for 89.40 points and stretched his lead in the world title race to 135.5 points over Brady Fielder. Fielder posted an 86.60 on Sour Patch and sat seventh on the event leaderboard at 3-for-6. Luciano De Castro remained the top-scoring man at 4-for-6, five points ahead of Lucas Divino (84.35 on Milestone), and Paulo Eduardo Rossetto moved into fourth after an 85.80 ride on Cookie, leaving three riders entering Round 7 with 4-for-6 records.

Hudson Bolton extended a flawless start at the PBR World Finals, going 5-for-5 in Round 5 at Dickies Arena with a personal-best 91.30 on Lights Out. The Milan, Tennessee, native entered the event as No. 10 and improved to 11-for-13 all-time in World Finals competition. Bolton said he was “grateful” and that he was taking the event “one bull at a time.” The Round 5 ride solidified his hold on the event leaderboard and made him a leading contender as the finals progress.

The final five rounds moved to Dickies Arena for May 14–17 after four opening rounds at Cowtown Coliseum, where Bolton and Luciano De Castro had been perfect at 4-for-4. The season’s gold buckle, the Robinson Cup and a $1 million World Championship bonus will be decided at Dickies Arena; PBR is paying a record $3.3 million at the World Finals. Each remaining go-round winner at Dickies will earn $50,000, and the nine-round aggregate winner will collect 500 world points plus a large cash payout.

With five rides left and sizable monetary and points incentives on the line, the finals set the stage for a decisive finish. Tight bull standings and the presence of top-10 YETI Bucking Bull of the Year contenders increase pressure on riders, since bull performance can swing rounds and point totals. Round 6 is scheduled for Friday, May 15, with in-arena action beginning at 7:45 p.m. CT and live coverage on Paramount+ at 8 p.m. CT. Early event leaders contrasted with others who struggled: No. 1 John Crimber was shut out in the opening four rounds, while Nos. 2 and 3 Brady Fielder and Sage Kimzey produced sporadic results through the first four rounds.

PBR announced the 2027 PBR World Finals: Championship will be held at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, May 20–23, 2027. The move is part of a new rotating host-city model established under a multi-year partnership between TKO Group Holdings and the Arizona Sports & Events Alliance, a deal that allows the championship to travel while keeping major programming in Fort Worth. CEO Sean Gleason said Arizona has a track record as a championship stage and Fort Worth will remain an important hub. Tickets for the Glendale championship weekend will go on sale May 14 at 10 a.m. MST at PBRWorldFinals.com/2027; tickets for the full Unleash The Beast series are slated to go on sale in August 2026.

PBR released the 2027 Unleash The Beast schedule with the Glendale announcement and framed the Glendale championship as the season finale. The 2027 schedule includes opening rounds of the World Finals at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, May 6–9, 2027. The Unleash The Beast series opens in Manchester, New Hampshire, Dec. 11–12, 2026, includes a Jan. 8–10, 2027 stop that marks PBR’s 20th visit to Madison Square Garden, and returns to Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 26–27, 2027.

The second half of the 2026 PBR World Finals, billed as Unleash The Beast, begins May 14 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, with the five final rounds set for May 14–17 to decide the World Championship and the gold buckle. Events Thursday through Saturday will begin at 7:45 p.m. CT (8:45 p.m. ET), and the final day on Sunday will start at 1:45 p.m. CT (3:00 p.m. ET) for Round 8 and the Championship. All live coverage for the weekend will be exclusive to Paramount+, with full replays also on Paramount+; CBS will air a feature titled The Road to the Gold Buckle on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. ET. Luciano De Castro enters championship weekend leading the aggregate after a perfect 4-for-4 in the opening rounds, with Hudson Bolton, Sage Steele Kimzey and Brady Fielder within striking distance. The weekend also marks the return of former world champion Jess Lockwood after he missed two days of opening weekend due to back spasms.

Luciano De Castro recorded his thirteenth-straight qualified ride at the 2026 PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast, scoring 90.15 aboard Sour Patch at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth and vaulting to the top of the event leaderboard. The ride pushed De Castro to a perfect 4-for-4 at the World Finals and ties him for the fifth-longest string of consecutive qualified rides in PBR history. De Castro is listed No. 11.

He earned 29 UTB points for his fourth-place finish in Round 4 and moved to the top of the event aggregate by 1.75 points over No. 14 Hudson Bolton, who also went 4-for-4 after an 88.25-point ride on Big Dawg.

After the ride De Castro credited his faith and family and said he approaches competition “bull by bull, jump by jump.” World Finals action will resume at Dickies Arena on Thursday, May 14, with Round 5 beginning at 7:45 p.m. CT and live coverage on Paramount+ at 8 p.m. CT.