St. Louis, MO (May 5, 2025)—When you have thousands of rowdy rodeo fans in the stands—and some equally torqued-up wild animals in the ring—you don’t want the audio to fail. That’s a top concern for the audio team at Gateway Studios & Production Services (St. Louis, MO), ensuring uninterrupted sound across both live and broadcast mixes for Professional Bull Riders (PBR) events. PBR, founded in 1992, hosts more than 200 events annually across North America and abroad, features athletes from five continents, and reaches nearly 300 million households via broadcast and digital platforms.
Shane Thomas is the system engineer responsible for deploying and managing GSPS’s touring rig for the flagship PBR Unleash The Beast tour and PBR Teams league, and since 2022, he’s been using Outline’s Newton as the processing core on PBR events. In these arena-scale, TV-first environments, he says, “Most of the upstream gear, including our DiGiCo Q338 console, runs at 48 kHz for broadcast, while our PA is at 96 kHz. Newton’s SRC is rock solid. We’ve never had a single clocking issue. That gives us a lot of confidence. I use one layer of EQ to shape the room, and FOH engineers—whether they’re traveling with the show or hired locally—can make their own tweaks on top of that. We’ve built a workflow that allows consistency without locking anyone out.”
“Newton’s been a great tool for our setup—super intuitive and easy to program right out of the box,” says Thomas. “The user interface is straightforward, which makes day-to-day use fast and hassle-free.”
It only took one ride for Dana White to realize that bull riding was not for him. The UFC president took one by the horns in 2015 while in Houston filming “Lookin’ for a Fight,” a series about him traveling the country finding new fighting talent. He did his best to hang on for eight seconds. “One of the dumbest things I’ve ever done,” White told the Star-Telegram in a phone interview May 1. While it was a one-and-done experience, it gave White a newfound respect for both bull riders and the bulls themselves. He soon decided to grab his checkbook rather than another bull rope. “I totally got into it and started buying bulls,” White said.
White’s latest purchase — Playmate — is one of more than 130 bulls that will compete at the PBR World Finals in Arlington and Fort Worth this month. Fort Worth will host the world finals elimination rounds from May 8-11 and the “Ride to Redemption” event from May 14-15 at Cowtown Coliseum in the Stockyards. The following weekend, May 16-18, Arlington’s AT&T Stadium will host Kid Rock’s “Rock N Rodeo” and the world finals championship. After making his PBR debut in 2024, White’s bull Playmate gets his first world finals nod on May 8. “This is fun for me. I like it like I like fighting,” White said. “You have the best riders in the world versus the best bulls in the world.”
When it comes to bull buying, White said he’s looking for “mean, nasty, violent bulls.” This rings true with Playmate, who is the son of three-time PBR World Champion, SweetPro’s Bruiser. On April 24 during his PBR team series debut, Playmate went berserk in the bucking chute and the rider had to be helped off the raging bull. “He’s a good-looking dude, I like everything about him,” White said. White, who has been head of the UFC for over 20 years, said evaluating bulls and fighters are comparable. His partner in the bull business — Dennis Davis of Orchard, Texas — sends pictures and videos of him working with the bulls. The duo also worked together on another one of White’s bulls, Twisted Steel, who competed in the 2024 world finals and died earlier this year. White said he’s thinking about stopping by Fort Worth to see Playmate make his debut on May 8. But if he isn’t there, White shared advice for riders who will give his bull a go. “Good luck, boys,” White said.
With just days until the 2025 PBR World Finals, Keyshawn Whitehorse is making a statement after a commanding win at the final Unleash the Beast event of the season. In Tacoma, Washington, Whitehorse entered the short round in the top spot and took advantage of the opportunity by selecting Mike’s Motive where the pair went 89.5 points to secure the event win. Now ranked 8th in the world, his highest position heading into the PBR World Finals, Whitehorse is locking in mentally for the sport’s biggest stage. “Just having that strong mental capacity to perform at a high level on a high stage on the best bulls in the world, that’s what it’s going to take,” Whitehorse explained.
Don’t miss the PBR World Finals – Ride for Redemption, airing Thursday May 15th exclusively on the Cowboy Channel at 9:00pm ET.
