Everywhere you look in rodeo, cowgirls are being celebrated, cheered and followed.
Some examples from 2024: The theme of Cheyenne Frontier Days 2024 was the “Year of the Cowgirl,” complete with unveiling of a new bronze at Frontier Park, “How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls,’ and a limited series podcast, Eras of Western Women.
In October, the Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace in San Francisco is hosting its second annual “Women in Rodeo” performance, featuring barrel racing, breakaway roping and bronc riding just for women.
The Pendleton Round-Up is taking place under the leadership of its first ever female President, Tiah DeGrofft, joined by just the fourth woman to serve on the Round-Up Board of Directors, and first to serve as medical director, Kristin Schmidtgall. Oh, and the 10-time PRCA Outdoor Rodeo of the Year’s General Manager happens to be a woman as well, Ericka Patton.
The Reno Rodeo in June held its first rodeo under the leadership of a female President, Carrie Ann Sattler while the Calgary Stampede elected its first woman director last year, Cherie Copithorne-Barnes.
These rodeos follow San Antonio, Houston and Denver, who all are currently led by women.
Additionally, two of the most followed stories on ProRodeo.com focused on ladies in traditionally male roles, pick up (wo)man Jessica Cardon and steer roper, Kassandra Shoemaker, who made history last year as the first female Rookie of the Year in the Wyoming Steer Roping Association en route to qualifying to their Finals. She also qualified to the inaugural National Finals Steer Roping College Division.
Shoemaker has continued to win as a professional in 2024, qualifying to the Mountain States Circuit Finals as a steer roping and filling her permit thanks to a win in Yuma, Colorado—that story earned over 1,000 likes on social media—and marked the first steer roping win in ProRodeo for a woman in the modern era.
The takeaway?
Women in the sport are standing the spotlight and deservedly so. Financial stats back the growth of their role in rodeo at all levels, proving that not only is it awesome to see the ladies getting their just due alongside their male counterparts, but it’s also lucrative as well for just about everyone involved.
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Still Paving Their Way
Rodeo has always been a pay-to-play sport and, with the big numbers from women’s events, the ladies are definitely carrying their own weight. Producers’ income streams include fees from entries, percentages held off purses, membership dues, fees and fines, stalls, stock charges and other costs paid by competitors.
Rodeo entries have surged
From youth rodeo to the professional ranks, women are still entering up at a higher rate than men in 2024, contributing huge dollars to the entities handling entries and the producers keeping a percentage of the purses.
The online rodeo management tool, NextGen Rodeo, handles entries for a number of large rodeo associations and jackpot producers including the World Champions Rodeo Alliance (WCRA), the International Pro Rodeo Association (IPRA), the United Pro Rodeo Association (UPRA), the Equine Sports Alliance and Group W Productions amongst others.
In 2023, NextGen handled over 92,000 separate entries for their various clients; of those entries, an incredible 69% were from female competitors.
Despite having fewer “girls-only” events, the trend was repeated at two of the summer’s largest youth rodeo events: the International Finals Youth Rodeo (IFYR) and the World Championship Junior Rodeo (WCJR).
“The breakaway entries were down some, but it was still the biggest event at the IFYR,” IPRA General Manager Dale Yerigan said.
In fact, breakaway entries hit an all-time high in 2023. In 2024, 235 breakaway ropers competed in Shawnee, Oklahoma, alongside 184 barrel racers, 76 goat tyers and 85 pole benders, netting 580 entries not counting the girls roping in the team roping. That’s well over 50% of the total.
At the WCJR, the numbers were even higher for the girls. Of the 964 total entries, 55% were female.
In the National High School Rodeo Association, more than 8,000 of a total 14,162 profiles created online—the first step to becoming a member—were by female contestants for the 2023-2024 season. At the July 2024 National High School Finals Rodeo in Rock Springs, Wyoming, 1,131 girls competed—just under half of the total 2,473 entries.
Though numbers from PROCOM, ProRodeo’s official entry system were unavailable for 2023-2024 for this story, past trends show that as much as 40% of all entries come from just the barrel racing and breakaway roping, the two ladies events.
With a cost to the ladies of $18 per entry (double that if she’s entering both events at one rodeo), the women provide a significant income boost, over $900,000 in 2022 with 50,349 entries. The number of rodeos holding breakaway roping has increased about 135% since then, easily putting that number more in the ballpark of $1 million.
After significant lobbying by the breakaway ropers themselves, The American Rodeo was one of the first high profile events to get in on the trend back in 2019, and it has proven to be a financial boon to the event and to the competitors.
Always the biggest event in terms of contestants paying entry fees into qualifying events and buy-back rounds (back when those were held), the breakaway roping has seen nearly 8,000 entries paid with 602 of those coming in 2024.
Though barrel racing at The American is open to both men and women, the majority are females and 839 put down entry fees to try to qualify in 2024.
On the other side, breakaway ropers took home $183,000 from the 2024 event.
Memberships on the rise
For rodeo organizations, membership dues are often a big chunk of the revenue side of their balance sheets and women make up a big percentage of both contestant dues and also contract personnel as secretaries, timers, and contract acts.
The Women’s Pro Rodeo Association (WPRA) is the oldest women’s only sports organization in the country and celebrated 75 years in 2023. Since the addition of breakaway roping to ProRodeo events, the WPRA’s membership has increased steadily, landing at 3,845 in 2024.
Under their 2020 agreement with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), a percentage of all WPRA dues are paid to the PRCA. In addition, the PRCA accepts memberships from both men and women and, though they don’t track the numbers, better than 400 are females with most falling into the contract personnel category.
READ: Winningest Women of the USTRC
Outside of the two organizations comprising ProRodeo, most rodeo organizations encompass all events and genders such as the IPRA, the second largest rodeo organization in the country.
The IPRA added breakaway roping back in 2011 and benefitted immediately from the boost in membership numbers. Today, the IPRA’s contestant membership is nearly 40% female from just two ladies’ competitive events.
Extrapolating those trends to the many various regional associations across the country shows the power of the ladies through their membership dues.
The Next Biggest Things
Because the ladies’ events have proven so popular and as a nod to their financial impact across the sport, more and more producers and sponsors are looking to get involved.
In the spring of 2024, the rodeo business was set on fire with the announcement of the Kimes Ranch Million Dollar Breakaway to be held in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Thanksgiving weekend.
Just as the name implies, the MDB is set to pay out an eye-popping $1 million. In a testament to the increasing drawing power of the ladies, the final night of the event is already sold out, several months in advance.
More and more women’s only events are cropping up or growing in size and payout.
In September, the Women’s Rodeo Championship announced that the 2025 reiteration of their championship event, the Women’s Rodeo World Championships, is raising its payout above $800,000 and adding another event, goat tying, to its lineup.
The WRWC launched in 2020 as an off-shoot of the World Champions Rodeo Alliance.
The WCRA has recognized the importance—and financial position—of women in the sport since its 2018 inception, adding breakaway roping as an equal event from the beginning. The WCRA boasts a different concept than other rodeo organizations, which are membership based, sanctioning bodies. Instead, the WCRA bolsters revenue through nominations made with its Virtual Rodeo Qualifier tool.
From the beginning, the relationship between female rodeo athletes and the WCRA has been one of mutual respect and benefit: WCRA continues to bring opportunities for the ladies and they, in turn, support the WCRA and, now, WRWC with their dollars. Female rodeo athletes make up 70% of the registered users of the VRQ tool, nominating to compete at major WCRA events and the WRWC.
Since the WCRA partnered with the Professional Bull Riders to launch the WRWC in November 2020, participation has grown 20% each year—enough to form the Women’s Rodeo Championships as its own organization as a strategic piece in the growth and long-term plans for women in the sport.
Already offering the largest payout to an all-women’s rodeo event, the WRWC offers breakaway roping, team roping and barrel racing. In 2024, qualifying rounds were held in Fort Worth, Texas, and champions were crowned for the second time in front of a sold out crowd at AT&T Stadium during the PBR World Finals in Arlington.
The WRWC is working to grow opportunities for all women in rodeo with new ideas, including tiering competition for all levels with Pro, Challenger and the new Limited categories of competition, and the inaugural WRWC Goat Tying Showcase, which will welcome the top 20 competitors from the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association to compete during the 2025 WRWC.
“With the support of the WCRA and PBR, it’s allowing us to showcase women of every level of talent, giving everyone an opportunity,” WRC Director of Operations & Rodeo Administration Sami Jo Smith said.
Smith noted that the revamped WRWC format will allow top competitors from each tier to advance to the final round and compete at AT&T Stadium.
Thanks to the support from the women themselves, there is more to come from WRC, which has already paid out $3.75 million to its athletes since 2020.
“We are looking forward to adding more events and more money for the ladies,” Smith said.
As for WCRA, to continue its mission of supporting all rodeo athletes, the organization recently announced the College National Finals Rodeo Top Hand Bonus—a $10,000 cash bonus to the top point earned during the college rodeo championship event in 2025 in each division, including three just for females: goat tying, barrels and breakaway.
Women are all over the WCRA’s Lifetime Earnings list with Martha Angelone, Jackie Crawford, Hope Thompson and Kelsie Domer holding dominating Nos. 2 through 5. Thanks to the huge WRWC boost, 12 of the top 20 spots are held by competitors sporting the XX chromosome.
ProRodeo Breakaway Continues to Grow
Breakaway roping in ProRodeo continued to expand in 2024 and the ladies continued to enter in large numbers. Despite having a max rodeo count allowed for the first time in 2024, the top 30 competitors have already competed in an average of 69 rodeos each with a few weeks left of the season.
With an increase in the number of rodeos, the winnings are going up, too. There are already six ropers with earnings in the six-figure range in September of 2024, compared to seven a year ago at the conclusion of the National Finals Breakaway Roping. Martha Angelone became the first breakaway roper to earn more than $100,000 en route to her world championship in 2022.
Just announced, the 2024 NFBR, once again held at the South Point in Las Vegas, will have an increase in total purse, up from $250,000 a year ago to $300,000. In 2023, WPRA World Champion Shelby Boisjoli-Meged earned $33,157 at the NFBR and $197,706 on the year, both new records.
Why ProRodeo committees are investing in the breakaway roping
Unlike most roping producers, ProRodeo committees see little direct financial gain from the breakaway contestants with the only direct funds coming in the form of stock charges paid by each competitor while challenges including raising funds for added costs and finding space for more contestants and time for additional competition.
In the past few years, huge events like RodeoHouston have made the leap, backing their decision with research which has shown that women hold the power of the purse. In 2024, 60% of rodeo and concert tickets were purchased by women and they make up 63% of the actual attendance.
Despite the financial challenges, the number of ProRodeos hosting breakaway continues to grow exponentially each year from less than two dozen back in 2019, the year prior to the start of a new agreement between the PRCA and the WPRA, to 441 in 2023 and 500 this year.
The amazing growth seems to be a top-down phenomenon with 86% (51 out of 59) of rodeos on the Playoff Series—the largest paying rodeos of the year—hosting a breakaway contest, and 36 of those offering equal money.
What’s the financial angle for rodeo committees? That’s a big question, one that each group must figure out before agreeing to the new event with its added financial burden of added money and cattle costs.
“We had a bit of a special case, I’d say,” said Josh Hilton, Rodeo Manager for the San Angelo Stock Show & Rodeo, one of the largest ProRodeos to come on board with breakaway in 2024. “We were already selling out every performance, and we weren’t going to go halfway and not add the full $45,000 that we do to the other events, not to mention to cost of cattle and adding a day of slack. The ladies basically pay for the first round with the stock charges they pay, but if you have multiple rounds and a short go, like we do, we have to find a way to pay for that.
“So, we were asking, ‘how does this make sense?’ Because, at the end of the day, we are a business; all committees are, whether we are working to make money for non-profits that we support or whatever reason we exist.”
Hosted in one of the most roping friendly communities in the world, San Angelo had already proven its enthusiasm for breakaway roping by adding the event to its annual Roping Fiesta in the fall.
“The Roping Fiesta paid more than $100,000 to the girls in each of the last two years, so over $200,000,” Hilton noted. “And San Angelo is the calf roping capital of the world. It’s a roping town, and the pressure was there that they wanted to have it.”
The dilemma was solved with an adjustment to ticket prices and with help from their sponsors, specifically Lip Chip, who was already a major investor in the Roping Fiesta breakaway roping.
“It was kind of the perfect storm,” Hilton said. “Because we were adding to the entertainment value of our show by adding the ladies, we were able to raise the price of the tickets. We got no argument from the ticket buyers. It was a good value to begin with, and adding the breakaway helped us in that process. It was a great addition to our rodeo.”
Other selling points for San Angelo included intangibles and economic impact to the community.
“The girls are great,” Hilton said. “They say thank you. Whenever we said we had to have our slack earlier, they said they didn’t care; they were happy to get to come compete. They are genuinely happy to be there.”
They come to compete and support the community.
“We’re looking at restructuring our slack next year and having the breakaway at the same time as the other events, so that’s a lot of trailers on the grounds,” Hilton said. “But there’s also a big economic impact to our community for that, too. The girls are more likely to bring their families and their kids—the babies are mostly with the moms, right? Especially in rodeo. We have a carnival so, often, they’re taking the kids over there and buying a $25 ride pass and going into town, spending money. We took that into account.”
Sponsorship success
Obviously, sponsors play a big role in all rodeo events at every level. And more and more are jumping on the breakaway—and women’s rodeo—bandwagon. But why? Apart from genuine desire to see opportunities grow for women, what financial incentive is there for a company to give money away to a ladies’ rodeo event?
“Overall, this was a passion project to support women in rodeo and the breakaway movement,” noted Lindsay Perraton, Chief Marketing Officer of Kimes Ranch. “But there were a couple of points that helped us with our decision.”
The Kimes Ranch Million Dollar Breakaway models its final format on the National Finals Rodeo with 10 rounds and an average but also offers qualifying rounds, giving every lady with a rope a chance to compete for the record-breaking purse.
Kimes was able to pair their passion with solid financial decision making in supporting the innovative event.
“Our women’s sales have grown 175% in three years,” Perraton said. “From a fashion sales perspective, women are more likely to try new brands and other styles quicker than men; they’re more fluid with their brand and shopping choices.”
The folks at Kimes saw a potentially mutually beneficial relationship that aligned with their corporate goals.
“We have a strong presence in rodeo already and, as a brand, it’s important to us to continue the growth of all equestrian and rodeo sports,” Perraton continued.
Breakaway specifically, fit the bill to a T.
“Breakaway roping specifically is a women’s sport, and the fan base is 62% women,” Perraton said. “Since 2009, the number of PRCA/WPRA breakaway events has grown by 1,400% and women account for 60% of total rodeo entries.”
The Intangibles
While there are plenty of solid numbers to back the assertion of the ladies’ financial impact in the sport, plenty of intangible benefits are worth citing, too.
Rodeo committees and media appreciate the willingness of the women of the sport to be available for press and public appearances for the purposes of promotion of the sport and individual events. Breakaway ropers, especially, are appreciated for their excellence in using social media platforms, another bonus for producers looking to spread the word and drive in new sponsorship.
The Challenges
With all the positives for women in the sport in recent years, there are still challenges, some of which the ladies themselves continue to roll up their sleeves to solve, proving again their value in the sport.
For example, at the circuit level in ProRodeo, breakaway ropers still do not share in additional sponsor money paid to other events through PRCA National programs, totals that average about $11,000 in each circuit. To ensure equal payout to the other events, the ropers have initiated fundraising projects of various types, effectively raising a large portion of their own prize money for the circuit finals rodeos.
Other challenges are tougher to solve.
Despite a huge social media movement known as #AddBreakaway, the event was not included in recent negotiations for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo contract extension, seemingly excluded the ladies from roping inside the Thomas & Mack for the next 10 years. And while tremendous sponsor support has raised the purse at the NFBR, the payout is still far below what the men and barrel racers of ProRodeo are earning at the NFR itself.
While finding comprehensive market research studies of the rodeo industry is a difficult task, the numbers available more than prove the financial boost that women within the sport provide across the board. Women are spending money in the sport and providing the intangibles to influence it in many ways that are hard to quantify.
