Will 2024 be WRCA's last ride in Amarillo? Rodeo mulls venue change
As the 28th annual Working Ranch Cowboys Association (WRCA) World Championship Ranch Rodeo kicks off at the Amarillo Civic Center this weekend, a cloud of doubt about the event's future in Amarillo was raised in a news conference Wednesday afternoon by the association.
Gary Morton, the WRCA rules and sanctioning chairman, spoke about the rodeo’s relationship with Amarillo and its economic impact on the city. There will be 25 teams competing in this year’s event, with more than 300 craftsmen and vendors at the rodeo, which runs Thursday through Sunday.
“This will be our biggest and best (event) ever, with more teams competing this year,” Morton said. “Amarillo has been our home since we started. It is still our home, and we love Amarillo. We have some needs for our facility. If we had additional facilities, we could put on more events and have more teams. The interest is out there; we could sell more tickets.”
According to Morton, the Friday and Saturday nights of the rodeo were sold out within 30 days of going on sale.
“We have some needs; we address the future one year at a time and see what changes are going to take place or if there are not any changes,” Morton said. “I am pretty sure we will be here through 2024.”
New Pavilion helps, but 'we would like to see more seats and more arena'
To accommodate the WRCA and some of its needs, the city of Amarillo built the Pavilion at the Santa Fe Depot, a 60,000 square foot open-air facility that cost more than $3 million, including concrete to build. The facility originally was going to be made specific to the WRCA's need to have a covered area to house horses but was expanded to be able to accommodate other events.
With more than 150 contestants being housed under the Pavilion, Morton said it is a significant improvement over renting a giant tent to house the horses. There are still issues with water connections to water the animals, but Morton sees it as an excellent asset for the city and the WRCA.
“The pavilion is a great help to us and will be useful for many other events,” Morton said. “We are very glad to have it.”
Morton said that while the civic center is a great asset to the rodeo, taking up all areas of the facility, there are infrastructure issues and the rodeo could easily fill up an arena twice its size.
“The building itself is old, even though they do a great job of taking care of it,” Morton said. “We would like to see more seats and more arena. Many of those things were in the previous plan that was voted on by the city of Amarillo. We are open to any changes that they would want to make. We are a driving force behind that, but it would not be like it would be just for us."
Plans for aging facility in limbo after failed bond election, lawsuit
In 2020, $275 million in funding, which would have included renovations to the Amarillo Civic Center, was rejected by 62% of the voters in Amarillo in a bond election. Then in May 2022, the city council approved an issuance of $260 million in anticipation notes to fund the renovation of the civic center, but after a lawsuit brought by Amarillo businessman Alex Fairly, the decision was invalidated. The city's loss of the lawsuit now left the civic center without a funding mechanism for improvements to the aging facility.
According to Morton, the civic center brings in about $30 million a year in revenue, and spending with the WRCA rodeo accounting for about $7 million of that number.
“That’s not pocket change; many of those things that were in the plan before would be very helpful to us,” Morton said.
He said that as a matter of good business, the WRCA may have to consider moving the rodeo to another city, especially with the arena only able to hold 4,800 people.
“There are several cities that have reached out to us and did submit proposals to us,” Morton said. “There are many facilities similar to this that will seat 10,000 people; this one barely seats 5,000.”
Asked if the city is not able to make changes to the facility, would it force the WRCA to move to a new venue, Morton said that the WRCA, at the end of the day, has to do what’s best for its organization.
“We have to look at it year by year and even if major changes were underway, it would probably take three to four years for it to come to fruition while in the meantime, we are going to have a hard time putting this event on with construction going on,” Morton said. “There are too many variables out there to say one way or another, but we just have to look at it an keep an open mind.”
2025 rodeo venue plans up in the air: 'We have to consider everything'
With 2025 being a possibility for not holding their event in Amarillo, Morton said that he could not commit beyond this year, but at this time, the association was not entertaining proposals elsewhere at this time.
“You would not believe how difficult it is to turn that into a rodeo arena,” Morton added. “We try to focus on having a good event. We have to consider everything.”
He said that with the addition of the youth ranch rodeo, with their families attending the rodeo, it could easily bring in way more attendees, but the lone arena in the current configuration of the civic center is not accommodating to expanding the event.
“There are only so many hours we can be in that arena, and then we have to water, plow and maintain it, all those things,” Morton said. “Time in the arena is prime. I think the previous plan they voted on had a second arena south of this building with the two connected. There are a lot of possibilities of what we could do if we had the facilities.”
The economic impact and value of the rodeo to the city, Morton says, is unquestionable.
“These folks that are here for the rodeo spend a lot of money staying in hotels and eating at restaurants in the area,” Morton said. “I think there is a certain value in the reputation and advertising of Amarillo. We bring in teams from all over the country, and very rarely do they say anything bad about Amarillo. The benefits are more than monetary, but the monetary is very substantial.”
CVB: Event's economic impact goes beyond $7 million with tourism, business
Hope Stokes, the director of marketing for the Amarillo Convention and Visitors Bureau, emphasized that the WRCA is a substantial economic driver as one of the city’s biggest events.
“This event is a huge drive of our economy and we are so blessed to host them every year,” Stokes said. “When we talk about these big economic impact numbers like $7 million, you don’t really think about it in terms of how it affects local business. If you look around town this week, you’re going to see cowboys in restaurants. It’s the busiest day of the year for dry cleaners; they’ll be taking their families out to attractions and really enjoying our city. They’re going to take that information home and tell their friends and family about Amarillo, and that will help support tourism throughout the rest of the year as well.”
She said it’s a ripple effect event that impacts the city for the entire year.
“It’s business at the end of the day, and while it is home for the WRCA, we love them, and we’ll do everything possible to keep them here,” Stokes said. “There’s a possibility they may move, and if they do, we’ll be sure to look for other avenues and other businesses we can bring in to help make up for that income.”
Stokes said that the WRCA is just doing what any business would do in trying to get better opportunities and trying to make their event better and more impactful. With improvements to the civic center, Stokes said, would come new opportunities from other events as well.
“It is a good fit culturally; they fit into our community well, “Stokes said. “We work with them well. I think we will be able to see them for years to come and do everything we can to keep them here. We do not want to lose the relationship that we have with the WRCA.”
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: WRCA mulls possible venue change for World Championship
