Dr. Phil Rides Into PBR

Merit is projected to be in 100 million homes by year’s end. The mix includes 45 over-the-air broadcast stations, cable, satellite, Roku, Apple TV, and Samsung Connected TV. Dr. Phil wants to reach viewers on whichever screen is in front of their eyeballs.

That strategy will bring much-needed order to PBR’s previously confusing schedule, relieving fans of their most common frustration: Where, when, and how do I watch this week?

In yesterday’s television landscape, Gleason had been unable to forge a consistent schedule for fans, and PBR telecasts often came on tape delay.

“Fans really had to hunt and peck to find us, and they were frustrated with all the spoilers,” he said.

Beyond that, PBR may be packing arenas coast to coast and signing global brand partners like Anheuser-Busch, but to be wholly perceived as a top sport, those delayed broadcasts presented a problem. Cliff diving is on tape delay.

That now changes. All year long, every event Merit carries in the individual Unleash The Beast as well as Teams competition will be live, in consistent broadcast windows Friday and Saturday night along with Sunday afternoon.

Even better for fans, all of Merit’s PBR content, which includes 50 episodes of the news and analysis show PBR Now, will be available simultaneously on the free Merit+ app.

Merit Street will also carry six two-hour Women’s Rodeo World Championship events, through WRWC’s partnership with PBR.

McGraw’s talent is pumped about diving in with PBR; nobody more than Steve Harvey.

Dr. Phil suggested to the popular TV host, author, and comedian a great stunt: get him on a bull.

“Steve said, ‘I’m not spending whatever years I’ve got left drinking from a straw so we can promote professional bull riding,’” McGraw recounted with a laugh.

Harvey plans to attend events to learn how to cover the sport; Nancy Grace, too.

Just envision the promo: “I’m Nancy Grace, and to not watch PBR is a true crime!”

Cross-promotion with PBR started before the deal was even announced.

Days after the network launched in April, Fanchon Stinger, co-anchor of “Morning on Merit Street,” devoted a feature to dispelling myths about the treatment of the bulls, who live like rock stars. 

Teenage bull riding phenom John Crimber and his father, pioneering Brazilian rider Paulo Crimber appeared with Stinger, who also chatted with bull owner Staci Addison about animal athlete care and the role of women in the sport.

When Cassio Dias won the PBR World Championship a week after being hospitalized following a wreck, the affable 22-year-old’s first media stop was McGraw’s studios.

The right person was asking the questions.

Stinger, who co-hosts Merit’s anchor morning show alongside Edward R. Murrow-award winner Dominque Sachse, is a bull owner and a consummate networker. Her penchant for putting the right people in a room would trigger her network’s first sports rights deal.

Stinger grew up in Michigan and spent a lot of time with family in Mississippi. She adopted a Western style, wearing cowboy boots and hats while riding horses and attending rodeos.

The best part of rodeo was the final discipline – the bull riding, especially the proud, majestic bucking bulls who brought each rodeo to a thrilling close.

“The bulls were always my favorite, and that’s why I became a PBR fan from when it began in the early ‘90’s when I started dreaming about owning a bull,” she said.

“I loved what the cowboys represented in toughness, love, honor, determination, and respect. And at the same time, I found myself cheering a little bit more for the bulls. I’m an animal lover, and I wanted to find a way to be part of a fun sport that made for good, wholesome family entertainment.”

She couldn’t ride bulls. Next best was dreaming to be a bull owner, and she eventually made that happen, partnering with legendary bull raiser Chad Berger, on the bulls Stinger and Lil Hott.

“Chad and I share the same values of treating animals like family,” she said. “When his bulls retire and eventually die, he buries them on his property. That really touched me. We became friends the day we met.”

Following Emmy-winning news anchor gigs in Detroit and Indianapolis, Stinger wound up with Merit Street. She saw an opportunity to bring like-minded organizations together, facilitating introductions for her friend Sean Gleason to meet McGraw Phil and Merit’s EVP/COO Joel Cheatwood.

The chemistry was instant.

“We saw the synchronicity between our audiences and brands,” Cheatwood said.

After three more meetings, filling a whiteboard with the breakout for hundreds of hours of Western sports programming, there was a handshake.

“This may have been the fastest, most cordial media rights negotiation in television history,” Gleason said.

Alongside new entrants ranging from Netflix to Prime Video, Merit Street jumps into live sports with one McGraw believes represents old-fashioned America virtues.

“There was a time when this country was agriculture based – work hard, work around animals, get together as a family for every meal,” he said. “Those historical roots are deep. I love that feeling with PBR. It feels like America getting back to its roots. That dovetails with what Merit Street Media is.”

Prior to the championship-deciding round at AT&T Stadium, McGraw and his wife Robin toured the locker room and back pens, chatting with some of the sport’s biggest and most fascinating characters.

As Robin was petting and scratching the bull Ricky Vaughan, his owner H.D. Page shared how the bull was stricken with a rare illness, taking away his sight. But with patience, love, and care, the blind, weakening bovine given a slim chance to live miraculously recovered. He was back competing with the world’s best.

That afternoon, he would be matched against World No. 1 Cassio Dias, who was making his own stunning medical comeback.

The McGraws heard Dias’ story as he prepared his bull rope, wearing the chaps of fallen bull rider Lane Frost, whose death inspired the influential film “8 Seconds.”

A week earlier, the affable cowboy was thrown on his head, stomped and back boarded out of the arena. PBR put out a statement saying they hoped he’d be back the next weekend. With Dias hospitalized with fractured bones in his back, broken ribs, a banged-up elbow and concussion, that felt more like a polite, boilerplate show of support than a realistic expectation.

Maybe he’d get on again. Someday. But not in a week.

Oh, but you don’t know Cassio Dias, with only a few bulls separating him from a gold buckle and million-dollar check, earnestly asking God for an answer while channeling his hero Lane Frost.