UB Bucking Co. gives back with $200,000 bounty bull at 2024 PBR World Finals

By Darci Miller

PUEBLO, Colo. – If you ask Chris Utz, a partner at UB Bucking Co., all good stories start at a bar.

It was at a birthday party at a bar in Nashville, Tennessee, when Utz first met Devin Sweeney, the CEO of AG-Gear. The two had multiple mutual friends and connected over their love of Western sports.

It was at this bar that Utz pitched Sweeney his idea – a bounty bull at the 2024 PBR World Finals. If the rider is successful, the prize money would be split between him and the Western Sports Foundation.

If Sweeney and AG-Gear got involved, Utz could double the money up for grabs.

Sweeney said yes immediately, and a partnership was born.

It’ll all come to fruition on Championship Sunday of the 2024 PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast. If a rider covers UTZ BesTex Legend, he receives $100,000. The Western Sports Foundation, which provides personal and professional development resources to Western sports athletes, also gets $100,000. If the rider is unsuccessful, UB Bucking will still donate $10,000 to the WSF.

“I’ve got a bunch of employees, and at the end of the day, we’re all blue-collar guys, and we work real hard,” Utz said. “When an employee gets hurt, we’ve got workers comp, we’ve got health coverage for these guys, and we’re only as good as our employees are, right? And their healthcare is a huge piece of that. And I start watching these bull riders, and there’s not one of them that’s 100% healthy, and they don’t have a backstop. It’s just them and whatever they can provide for themselves. So, in researching it, we discovered the Western Sports Foundation, and so it’s become something that was, how can we help these guys? How can we do something that does two things – one, shine a spotlight on that this organization exists, the Western Sports Foundation and their rider relief fund, and garner some public interest that it exists, and then do something really cool for these guys?”

“We're excited to partner with UB Bucking Co. to bring this initiative to life,” said Josh Baker, PBR’s Chief Revenue Officer. “The Western Sports Foundation is central to the health and wellness of Western sports athletes everywhere, and we’re proud to highlight the UB Bucking Co.’s Bounty Bull on Championship Sunday at the PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast benefitting this great cause.”

For the Western Sports Foundation, a donation of this size would be a gamechanger. They hope to put it towards getting their learning management system up and running so athletes have their resources available at their fingertips, but they also see it going towards rider financial assistance requests during the offseason.

“We’re humbled by the support and the graciousness,” said Western Sports Foundation Executive Director Aubrey O’Quin. “Something like this, it changes lives, and to have a donation of this magnitude, they’re the unsung heroes of what we’re able to do. We couldn’t do it without every donation, but donations this size really allow us to continue to help as many athletes as we possibly can and to be able to also just provide services that we’re doing and do it at the best caliber we possibly can. Something like this is lifechanging for an athlete, but it’s a gamechanger for us to be able to continue to do what we’re doing and to know that what we’re doing isn’t falling on deaf ears, and that people see the significance and the importance of the Western Sports Foundation and the difference that it’s making.”

UB Bucking Co. has been mission-driven from the beginning. Utz met stock contractor Blake Sharp in 2021 – naturally, over a beer at a birthday party – and decided he wanted to buy a bull.

“We’ve bought dumber stuff in our life, right?” Utz said with a laugh.

UB Bucking Co. now has more than 30 bovine athletes on its roster that are cared for, trained and transported by Sharp, with the mission to change the narrative surrounding the importance of the bulls.

“Without the bulls, there isn’t the sport of bull riding,” Utz said. “So our mission is to shine a big, bright spotlight on that, and hopefully, we can make some effective change. It costs a lot of money to haul them up and down the road.”

Sharp, whose father Tony was hauling bulls back when the PBR first formed, has a passion for the business that’s in his blood.

“Either you love something or you don’t, but I surely love this more than anything there is,” the 2023 PBR Stock Contractor of the Year said. “So I like to attract people that are on the same page as me, and Chris has been more than that. There’s a lot of guys that get into it – ‘Oh, I want a bull. I want a bull. Whatever.’ It’s more than that. So I pick and choose who I do business with, and Chris has been one of the best people I’ve ever done business with.”

A lifelong bull guy, Sharp is excited to see the bounty bull return to the PBR.

“I think it’s bringing something back to the sport that’s needed,” Sharp said. “Back in the day, back in the early 2000s, you had a lot of bounties. You had the Mossy Oak Shootout, which was $100,000. I think Owen Washburn won $90,000 on Hammer when he rode him. You had the $1 million deal with Chris Shivers and Little Yellow Jacket. There were also a couple more in there, too, but I think it’s been too long. I think we need to have something back like this, and what a great cause it’s going to, to help the riders out. Without them, without the bulls, we don’t have this sport, and we’ve got to take care of them just like we’ve got to take care of the bulls. This is a very honorable deal for me because I actually get to flank the bull. I get to feed him up until the point that he goes, and a lot’s on me, but I take great pride in it. I think it’s a great thing overall. I think this is wonderful.”

All parties of the partnership are thrilled that everyone will benefit – the rider, the bull, and the WSF.

“I couldn’t think of a better way for us to make an entry point into this space than to do this,” said Sweeney of AG-Gear. “I didn’t have to hesitate because I was like, ‘Okay, I want to push bulls – check. I want to push the people that take care of and raise the bulls – check. I want to take care of bull riders – check – and then also the foundation that cares for those riders if something goes wrong.’ I don’t see how it could get any better.”

Utz and UB Bucking Co. usually focus their philanthropic efforts on their immediate community in the greater Austin, Texas, area and give back for no personal gain – it’s simply because they want to inspire people with kindness.

“I felt just so moved by coming into this industry with Blake in late ’21, and it’s that word – a sense of community,” Utz said. “Everyone there embraced us for who we were, welcomed us with open arms, couldn’t be more polite, and so it became, in essence, a sense of community. While it’s not in my own backyard, it might as well be. It got high on our list of things we wanted to focus on. And after meeting rider after rider after rider, and how genuine these kids are, and well-raised – they’re an essence of what is lost in America’s youth. The Western Sports Foundation and the people they represent are the types of people we do want to support.”

Even if the bounty is unsuccessful, O’Quin is grateful to have the platform of the World Finals and CBS Sports Network to publicize the WSF’s mission.

“The more eyes, the more ears that know what we’re doing and know the importance of it, that only helps us drive our mission,” O’Quin said. “The more we can get the word out there, the better. So we’re just forever grateful for Chris and Stacy and their team, and to be able to be the nonprofit that you guys are choosing to help support and platform. I can’t say enough that I’m truly humbled.”