750 tons of dirt were loaded into Barclays Center late last week as the venue prepared to host the PBR’s Maverick Days on Friday and Saturday, the first sand event in the arena’s 12-year history.
“I don’t know if there was a rule that there couldn’t be dirt in the building or if that was just a rumor, but we could really expand the types of events we host in the building,” said Laurie Jacoby, chief entertainment officer of BSE Global. “I talked to our facility managers — ‘Is there a reason we can’t have dirt in the building?’ — and no one could give me a good answer.”
So Jacoby booked PBR’s two-year-old Team Series tournament, which features the New York Mavericks; PBR’s singles series will return to MSG for the 18th consecutive year this January. More than 10,000 fans attended the two-day event. Jacoby declined to disclose per-head spending, but said it was a decent number, in part because the event lasts at least three hours. Merchandise sales, including PBR belt buckles, were handled for PBR by BSE Global and also went well. PBR was a moneymaker for the arena.
“It won’t be at the level of some of our big concerts, but we did quite well,” Jacoby said.
The event drew an interesting cross-section of society that might not be at Barclays Center for Nets or Liberty games that often. Many of the top PBR riders are Mexican or Brazilian, so their countrymen were there, but also a lot of Gen Z alt-country hipsters. These are the same fans that would come to Zach Bryan or Kacey Musgraves’ shows at Barclays Center this year. A PBR fan fest was held on the arena’s plaza, even though the weather was rainy.
“I think there were a lot of people who had never been to Barclays,” Jacoby said. “We’re always trying to expand our database and hopefully program some things that they’ll come back to.”
Powerful operation
To house the 74 bulls, the Barclays Center operations team had to organize a rear area with 52 pens. “This building was not built to bring bulls in,” Jacoby said. The animals were brought in their trailers to the rear of the arena using the building’s unique truck elevator. After the bulls competed, they were returned to their trailers, taken up the elevator and back outside, where they were then driven to the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, NJ.
After the two-day event concluded, the PBR sand and show elements were unloaded on Sunday. Missy Elliott performed in the building the next day. Since the bulls weren’t in the arena too long, there was no odor left behind.
“You wouldn’t even know they were there,” Jacoby said.
The Barclays Center needed 750 tons of earth to house the PBR and its 74 bulls over the weekend
