{"id":87425,"date":"2026-01-02T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/87425\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:18:09","slug":"new-york-mavericks-to-return-to-msg-three-day-buck-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/87425\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Mavericks to return to MSG three-day buck-off"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"New\t\t\t<\/p>\n

New York Mavericks rider Bob Mitchell rides the bull at Maverick Days at UBS Arena.<\/p>\n

Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

Professional Bull Riding (PBR) and the New York Mavericks are making their way back to New York City next week.\n<\/p>\n

From Jan. 9-11, Madison Square Garden will host the PBR Monster Energy Buck Off at The Garden<\/a>, presented by Ariat. Riders from the New York Mavericks and the other PBR teams will go head-to-head in an individual competition to see who can ride their bull the best.<\/p>\n

During a buck-off, there are no qualifying rides like in a team competition: you get one shot to see if you can stay on the bull for eight seconds.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOur roots are back to rodeo, where bull riding was part of the seven events that made up a traditional rodeo. The original founders broke bull riding out to stand alone as a product, and it was individual against individual,\u201d said Sean Gleason, CEO and Commissioner of PBR. \u201cWhat you\u2019re going to see in Madison Square Garden is what we\u2019ve been doing for 34 years now: the best individual, the best bull riders in the world against the best bulls on the planet, and it\u2019s mano a mano.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Marco<\/a>Marco Rizzo on night 1 of the Mavericks home stand.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

For the New York Mavericks\u2019 team captain, Marco Rizzo, preparing for the buck-off is no different than preparing for a team competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different setting, but the job kind of stays the same. You have to ride your bull just like every other weekend. I guess the feeling changes a little bit, it\u2019s a big event,\u201d said Rizzo. \u201cThe crowd\u2019s gonna be rocking in that building. The preparation stays the same, but the feeling and the pressure change a little bit for sure. But everything else just kind of keeps the job simple: stay on your bull and have some fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basics are still the same, whether you\u2019re in teams or whether you\u2019re in the individual season, it still boils down to you just staying on your bull,\u201d said New York Maverick\u2019s Bob Mitchell. \u201cThe basics really don\u2019t change, but the mindset changes over.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a part of the fun, on Jan. 9, the Mavericks will take on the Carolina Cowboys in the PBR Monster Energy Team Challenge.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the people in New York believe that New York is the greatest city there is, and I agree with that. So when we go there, the expectation is to win, so there is a little bit more pressure, and just for my teammates, there\u2019s a little bit more pressure because I have to do my job for the other guys as well,\u201d said Rizzo.<\/p>\n

Despite PBR itself being relatively new in the grand scheme of New York sports, professional bull riding has been captivating the NYC audience. PBR has worked to introduce bull riding to the city, slowly working its way in by advertising on taxis to look like bulls and continued to create roots in New York. Arturo di Modica, the artist behind Wall Street\u2019s \u201cCharging Bull,\u201d created a special trophy for PBR\u2019s first event at MSG, which was a miniature replica of the statue.<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/a>Sean Gleason, with Charging Bull artist, Arturo di Modica during the New York City Unleash the Beast PBR.Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media<\/p>\n

Gleason says a lot of exposure came from when PBR bucked bulls in Times Square in front of NASDAQ.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that year, we just started seeing crowds get bigger and bigger to the point where now we sell out three days at Madison Square Garden, and not a lot of sports can say that,\u201d said Gleason.<\/p>\n

Next weekend, fans can expect a high-energy time that will get their adrenaline pumping.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing that we say, and it\u2019s not really a clich\u00e9 to us, but the fans pay for the entire seat and they only use the front edge of it; we want them entertained the whole time that we\u2019re there,\u201d said Gleason. \u201cWe want them to walk away with an appreciation for the athletes in the sport, both the human and the bull athletes, and walk away with an appreciation for what they do and have an experience that harkens back to the history and the heritage of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bulls are living, breathing animals that have a mind of their own, and can do whatever they want, so when you come to a PBR, it keeps you on the edge of your seat because you never know what\u2019s gonna happen next,\u201d said Mitchell.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t get better than New York. The crowd\u2019s different there. The historic building we get to ride in \u2014 it\u2019s gonna be fun,\u201d said Rizzo.<\/p>\n

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit pbr.com\/tours\/unleash-the-beast\/2026\/new-york-ny<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Mavericks rider Bob Mitchell rides the bull at Maverick Days at UBS Arena. Photo by Lloyd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[42122,42123,222,42124,9,24,55,54,42125,56,42126,42127],"class_list":["post-87425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bob-mitchell","tag-bull-riding","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-marco-rizzo","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-mavericks","tag-ny","tag-pbr","tag-sean-gleason"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}