The World’s Oldest Rodeo creates branding for Prescott worth more than the weight of revenues brought in during the eight-day event. It paints the city with imagery of honesty, integrity and decency steeped in American cowboy tradition. And that, said Yavapai College Business Professor Terry Lovell, is “worth its weight in gold.”
“The World’s Oldest Rodeo is a huge moneymaker for this town and it helps establish a brand for Prescott,” said Lovell, who has analyzed the financial effects of Prescott’s rodeo on the city and its businesses. “What we found is the economic impact is much larger than we thought.”
Prescott Frontier Days Inc., which produces the rodeo and tracks statistics, reports rodeo ticket sales nearly doubled in under 10 years: $221,000 in 2003, $325,800 in 2007 and $401,000 in 2012.
Last year’s $386,000 in ticket sales was slightly less than the previous year, likely attributed to the June 28 Yarnell wildfire that killed 19 city Hotshot firefighters and forced a grieving town to shift focus from traditional July 4th festivities, PFD officials say.
J.C. Trujillo, PFD general manager, expects 2014 numbers to veer back on track. “This year, we’re already ahead on pre-ticket sales from the previous year. It’s our goal to sell out on all eight shows,” he said, confident of the possibility. “We’ve got a good ad campaign and we’ve improved our rodeo, and caliber-wise, it’s going to make for a great show [this year].”
PFD spends upwards of $90,000 annually to promote and advertise Prescott’s rodeo to a worldwide audience. Last year, all eight rodeo shows brought in 30,012 attendees from 45 states and 15 countries, with most of the 2013 out-of-state attendees from the southwest states of California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado – inevitably creating positive gains for the city of Prescott, its restaurants, hotels and retail shops, Trujillo said.
However, it is not possible to ascertain exactly what those gains were in terms of revenues and profits for the city or its businesses, because no one tracks those figures.
Prescott Chamber of Commerce does not analyze the rodeo’s economic effects on local businesses because it is an item that has not been specifically requested or identified for study, said David Maurer, Chamber CEO. However, that does not preclude it from being a future possibility, he added.
Furthermore, analyzing city sales tax revenues does not provide an accurate assessment of business activity on rodeo days, said City Finance Director Mark Woodfill, because sales data is received from businesses monthly or quarterly, depending on each business’s filing methods. There are no records, he said, for daily sales activity.
“It’s hard to identify a definitive revenue for the rodeo based on sales tax reports in a very busy month,” Woodfill said. “There’s no way to separate the rodeo from the Fourth of July, and so forth.”
A detailed city- and business-revenue impact assessment of Prescott’s world-famous rodeo was done more than 10 years ago by Lovell, who, with help from his Yavapai College Statistics students, interviewed hundreds of rodeo attendees each year from 1996 through 2000 to establish a baseline of economic activity for each rodeo guest.
What Lovell discovered through research analysis and five different studies is the average rodeo attendee spent about $250 each day and the city brought in about $360,000 each July in rodeo-related revenues. “If you adjust for inflation, it would have to be at least two times that amount today,” Lovell said. “Today, the rodeo has got to have a million-dollar impact on this town.”
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Spokesperson Jim Bainbridge thinks it is safe to pluralize that million-dollar estimate based on figures from other cities.
PRCA is the world’s highest paying American rodeo organization and sanctions rodeos in the United States and Canada, including Prescott’s rodeo. PRCA’s capstone competition is the 10-day Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas each December that generates more than $90 million in revenues for that city, based on Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority estimates.
Madison, Wisconsin’s two-day rodeo had an $8.4 million economic impact for the city’s last rodeo, which is “not near the scale or tradition of Prescott,” Bainbridge said. “You have to figure the economic impact of Prescott is a good deal more.”
Pomp and circumstance of the much-anticipated rodeo can be felt through its official website. Visit www.worldsoldestrodeo.com and the first thing you will see is a countdown to the historic event, timed to the second. With more than 70 national and local sponsors listed online, it is clear businesses realize its value.
“This is a major tourism event – if not the major tourism event of the year,” Maurer said of the 127-year-old rodeo.
Prescott’s PFD Inc. holds the official patent as “World’s Oldest Rodeo” through the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a major draw for people worldwide, Bainbridge said.
Another draw: Prescott’s rodeo coincides with Independence Day, a national birthday celebration honoring America’s heritage, including the Old West, he said. “Fourth of July week is what we call ‘Cowboy Christmas.’ There are about 30 rodeos going on in the USA and Canada and so much money is being offered to participants – there’s millions of dollars up for grabs.”
Cowboys choose rodeos based on total prize monies offered – or what is called a “committee purse” – raised through sponsorships and ticket sales, plus entry fees.
Prescott’s rodeo rates high in prize monies, Bainbridge says, with its 2013 purse ranked 33 out of 611 rodeos, making it very appealing to cowboys.
More than tangible gains, experts say the rodeo’s image and brand have incredible yields for Prescott and its businesses in terms of drawing economic activity and development, as well as future residents.
“A lot of businesses get involved and everybody benefits from Prescott’s rodeo,” Bainbridge said. “Restaurant owners get more money, hotels fill up, bars fill up, and all these things going on can turn a little town into a mid-sized town overnight. Prescott has a ton of tradition and its rodeo is a big deal in the community.”
That rodeo tradition includes rituals, rites and ceremonies, all of which create the ideal branding, Lovell said.
“It’s all of the loaded words that bring about an emotional response that create its appeal: The magic of the American West, the mystique of the American Cowboy created by the rodeo experience – that’s what you sell.
“If you want people to associate your town with those traditional values of honesty, integrity and decency, then that’s what the rodeo does. It’s the brand of Prescott and a draw for people from other countries,” Lovell said. “It’s a very valuable enterprise to have the World’s Oldest Rodeo. It’s a gold mine.” QCBN
By Josette Kubin
Quad Cities Business News
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