Bad Company Rodeo

In rodeo, as in most sports, champions earn awards. Most champions greatly impact their sport, because they work very hard to be better, and this brings growth and makes the sport better. The impact of this is that as the sport grows, revenue grows, the fan base grows, sponsorships increase, and more money is offered to the contestants. That is flat out a win-win situation for rodeo. The more money offered to contestants draws the bigger name contestants, which draws more fans to the events, which draws more sponsors, which results in more money for the contestants. And on it goes!

Mack Altizer’s Bad Company Rodeo has impacted the growth of rodeo and bull riding for several decades. He has earned quite a few awards. He was the PRCA Stock Contractor of the Year in 1998. He was the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association Stock Contractor of the Year in 1994 and 2000, and the Professional Women’s Rodeo Association Stock Contractor of the Year in 1999. He is a member of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Mack received the Jim Shoulders Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 PBR Heroes and Legends Celebration in Las Vegas at the PBR Finals. Mack has always had a love for excitement and change. His innovative ideas brought highenergy rock and roll, and new-fangled marketing strategies to bull riding and rodeo. This brought excitement and change that revolutionized and revitalized the sport.

Mack Altizer (center), with Tammy and Bill Putnam, during the 2021 Bull Riding Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

Photo by Phillip Kitts / Avid Visual Imagery

In May of this year, Mack and his Bad Company Rodeo were inducted into The Bull Riding Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. “That was a good deal,” Mack said. “It was shocking really. It was unexpected, and it was never something I set out to do. But so many changes in bull riding developed off of what we did!”

Mack grew up with a rope in his hand. He is the son of the late Jim Bob Altizer, a Hall of Fame match roper considered by many to be one of the greatest of all time. Mack competed in the American Junior Rodeo Association and the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association. His senior year of high school, he won the National High School Calf Roping championship in Sulphur Springs, Louisiana.

Photo by Dave Jennings

Mack admits that money was the motivation to start Bad Company Rodeo back in 1981. As a rodeo competitor, Mack soon realized that he was spending a lot more money than he was taking in. He knew that the only way to keep on rodeoing was to get more money coming in to rodeo.

Mack rodeoed with a rowdy bunch of cowboys. They liked fun and excitement and rock and roll music. “My favorite group at that time was Bad Company. So I named the company Bad Company Rodeo. I had a whole group of guys that helped me start out. Casey Duggan (Now Director of Rodeo Operations and Administration at the WCRA, the World Champions Rodeo Alliance) came to my home in Del Rio to help put stuff together. Cody Lambert was instrumental in giving us input. Chuck Lambert, Chuck Kenny, and Roach Hedeman helped out too.”

L to R- Chuck Kinney, Smurf Horton, Roach Hedeman, Tony Johnson.

Photo by Dave Jennings

“Dave Jennings took all our photos,” Mack added. “Boyd Polhamus was our announcer for many years. Benje Bendele worked our sound board. We were the first to have more than two bull fighters in the arena. World Champion Bullfighter Mike ‘SMURF’ Horton was with us for many years. Harry Vold helped us produce some of our college rodeos early on. I got some of his older horses. Everything just always kind of fell into place. The whole deal was a wild west story!”

“We started buying practice stock and going to the sale barns to check out all the bulls,” Mack revealed. “We bought all the good-looking bulls we could get our hands on. At one point we had a group of NFR type bucking bulls that we called the Dirty Dozen. Bull riders had a chance to win first place on any one of these bulls. This really helped draw the more experienced bull riders to our events.”

Then Mack decided to breathe some new life into his productions. “We started naming all our bulls after rock and roll songs. Songs like Wild Thing, Superstition, Wooly Booley, Crocodile Rock, and Bad to the Bone. When that bull was in the chute waiting for the cowboy to climb aboard, we would play the song that was the name of that bull over the loudspeakers! The fans loved it, and it brought a new level of excitement and entertainment to the sport. It really motivated the fans and gave them more of a concert experience.”

Michael “Smurf ” Horton rides the Bad Company Rodeo bull, Party Animal.

Photo by Dave Jennings

“This was also a new way to market our events,” Mack disclosed. “The music was a key because the bulls were named after the songs, and the fans stood and danced and clapped while the bull riders were getting set to ride. This not only drew more fans, but it drew some bigger-name bull riders like Jim Sharp, Cody Lambert, and Tuff Hedeman, and that drew new sponsors. We wanted to get the rock and rollers interested in the rodeo, not just the country music loving folks. At first, many folks said we were the guys that were too loud. But it really caught on fast. Our fan base grew, and we were able to offer more money as we watched the changes we were making impact the sport.”

“At first, a lot of producers tried to copy us,” Mack said. “But they didn’t have the quality caliber of bulls and did not really succeed. We learned as we went. Most everything we did caught on, and it really seemed to improve the rodeo and bull riding experience for everyone involved. As we were successful, folks started copying us. The PBR really helped the whole deal too. They upgraded the bull herds, the personnel, the bull fighters, the prize money and the judging. RFD-TV has been instrumental in helping the sport to grow, too.”

Bad Company Rodeo has a short video tribute on their Facebook that was taken at the 2019 Jim Shoulders Lifetime Achievement Awards program. Nine-time World Champion Cowboy and CBS Commentator Ty Murray said, “The production all the way around in both rodeo and the PBR is way better now because of the foundation that Mack Altizer was innovative enough to lay for it.”

In that same video tribute, Cody Lambert, the PBR Livestock Director, offered, “The rodeos that he put on were better because they were Bad Company Rodeos. It didn’t matter which event you were in, you had a competitive opportunity. He’d get the best stock, he’d get the best cowboys, and then they had a successful rodeo. He made sure they always had more money next year.”

Dave Jennings, long-time photographer for Bad Company Rodeo, said: “Mack Altizer changed the rodeo world forever with his vision of putting on the rodeo that we wanted to see. He modernized the sport with attention to production and music, as well as having superior stock for all events (not just rough stock). Contestants could win on anything they drew and the crowd was treated to a rodeo like they had never seen before. It was absolutely the best time in the world, and I was proud to be a part of it!”

Gary "Roach" Hedeman rides the saddle bronc while Michael "Smurf" Horton rides in the background.

Photo by Dave Jennings