Cowboys Stadium Eyeing Rodeo Show

Las Vegas has laid claim to a premier rodeo event for the past 25 years, but the city could be facing some stiff competition in the future from the owner of a Texas football team.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who’s been actively pursuing top-dollar events for the team’s home Cowboys Stadium that opened in June, has reportedly set his sites on the annual National Finals Rodeo.

Cowboys Stadium has already hosted this year’s NBA All-Star Game, with the 2011 Super Bowl and 2014 NCAA Final Four on the books. The venue recently secured a boxing match that fell through in Vegas and now, according to officials from the team, the “Super Bowl of rodeos” has a nice ring to it.

Cowboys communications director Brett Daniels told the Las Vegas Sun that while the team has had a “few initial conversations” with the NFR, they’re “not actively pursuing it at this time.”

“We’re interested in finding out more about it,” he said.

Las Vegas hosts the NFR each December at the 26-year-old UNLV Thomas & Mack Center, and has a contract with the organization through 2014, the paper said.

But after that point, the rodeo might be up for grabs.

Cowboys Stadium hosted a Professional Bull Riders event Feb. 20 that reportedly drew 46,000 people to the 80,000-capacity venue.

Las Vegas Events head Pat Christenson told the Sun he’s hopeful a new arena development will be under way before NFR negotiations head back to the table, given the city’s large investment in coordinating events.

“The great thing about the rodeo is that we’ve built so much around it. What we’ve done over the past eight or nine years is develop spinoff events, and we now have about 20 of them,” Christenson said.