With the Unleash the Beast season beginning this weekend, PBR has a temporary fix after announcing the break on social media earlier this week. The biggest bull riding league in the world, Professional Bull Riders, announced on social media that it had split from Merit Street Media, the Fort Worth-based streaming service and television network that Phil McGraw, also known as “Dr. Phil,” established.
After the two parties partnered in the spring, the network was supposed to air 300 hours of PBR content yearly. However, PBR claims Merit Street violated their media rights agreement by neglecting to pay rights fees. Following weeks of talks, PBR removed its content when Merit Street was unable to fix the issue.
PBR CEO Sean Gleason told The Dallas Morning News, “We worked hard to see if we could mend the relationship and move forward with them.” “We just got to the point where we had to prioritize our fans after trying to do that for almost six weeks.”
This weekend in Tucson, Arizona, the league’s first individual Unleash The Beast season gets underway.Merit Street was scheduled to broadcast it. PBR claims they are currently looking for a new broadcast partner as a result of the hack. Events scheduled to air on Merit Street will be accessible for free in the interim via RidePass on PlutoTV, PBR’s YouTube page, and its mobile and smart TV apps.
Gleason underlined that even though PBR and Merit Street had regular correspondence throughout the cure period—a predetermined amount of time for a party to correct a contract violation—it was never made apparent why Merit Street would not pay the rights fees. In order to reach fans and customers, we took a chance on a new network that shared many of our ideals and objectives, according to Gleason. “Merit Street Media just decided not to pay us our rights fee, despite the fact that we were very successful in attracting new viewers.”
He claimed that “we delivered everything that we were supposed to deliver.” “We were forced to terminate.”
According to Gleason, 2.4 million people have watched PBR on Merit Street, including 1.2 million who came purely for PBR. The league claims that its attempts to direct viewers to other Merit Street content have been successful.
In reaction to PBR going public with the contract violation, Merit Street released the following statement:
Merit Street consented to resolve its disagreements with PBR in a private process that is still going on. Therefore, since the facts are in question, we were taken aback that PBR would openly accuse us of breaking our agreement. Furthermore, we are shocked that PBR has insisted on having its programs taken off our network right away while negotiations are still going on. During the proceedings, Merit Street will strongly defend itself.
In response to the statement, Gleason said, “You failed to cure, and for six weeks you knew it was the result of a failure to perform against the contract. There was nothing we could do. Therefore, I’m not sure how you’re surprised given that this is the problem.
PBR was Merit Street’s first sports broadcast contract when it debuted in February. With shows featuring well-known figures like Nancy Grace and Chris Harrison, the former host of The Bachelor, the network experienced early popularity. However, the network announced 38 job cuts in August.
PBR’s contract with CBS expires in 2030, and it is looking for a new broadcast partner to supplement it. However, Gleason claims that Merit Street Media will not be the next deal, despite
as the two attempt to correct the violation of the contract.
“This circumstance wasn’t anything we requested. We had no choice. “We brought a lot of fans to Merit Street’s network, and we have a lot of fans,” Gleason stated. “We had no choice but to put together what we could because we’re preparing to launch a new season and the majority of our content for the next 25 weeks.”
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