The Women's Professional Rodeo Association won a $6.875 million jury award against the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association in December, at the start of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, finding the nation's pre-eminent rodeo association guilty of "misappropriation of business value and breach of fiduciary duty."
The jury felt that the PRCA used confidential WPRA information to create its own barrel racing association.
"We had given them all our member information, which was confidential, for the entry system and they took that information and mass mailed all of our members," according to WPRA President Jymmy Kay Davis. "Then, when they started the Professional Women's Barrel Racing (PWBR) they honored not only our cards, but our permits and our gold cards. They didn't do that for the AQHA or the NBHA or any other barrel racing organization. If you had $1,000 won in the WPRA, you had $1,000 won in the PWBR. They completely stole our association. We had the best barrel racing association in the world, we'll compete with anybody, but that's not what happened. They purposely tried to put us out of business."
The jury found that it wasn't that the PRCA created a barrel racing association that was illegal, it was the way they created it that led to the verdict. In addition to the usage of member records, rodeo committee members testified that they felt bullied into hosting PWBR barrel race events, according to Davis.
"After all that was said about all of us, we feel vindicated," Davis said. "It's nice that people see that we had to do the right thing and that six people that didn't know any of us unanimously decided that we were right. It has not been an easy journey, but it has made us stronger women."
How it Started
After PRCA Commissioner Steven Hatchell stepped down from his leadership role in December of 2004, the PRCA's financial woes became widely rumored (and later confirmed at the December 2005 state of the PRCA address given by his successor Troy Ellerman that detailed the organization's subsequent financial turnaround).
Hatchell's plan to grow the sport by creating the Wrangler ProRodeo Tour system, the winter, summer and championship Finales, Xtreme Bulls and televising them all wound up putting the organization $3.5 million in the red.
"The PRCA had a cash flow problem," said former PRCA Director of Rodeo Administration Jim Nichols. "But I don't think they were ever in a financial crisis."
