When Robson Palermo came to the United States about a decade ago, he spoke two languages: Portuguese and bull riding.
Luckily, the latter was enough to acculturate him into a sport steeped in American cowboy tradition but constantly welcoming a more diverse array of athletes and fans as it expands worldwide.
The Brazilian-born Mr. Palermo is one of many riders from the South American nation who have made a name for themselves holding tight for eight seconds atop a thrashing 1,800-lb. beast. They’re now an integral part of Professional Bull Riders, the premier international association for the sport based in Pueblo, Colo.
Adriano Moraes, the first PBR world champion of after it split off from rodeo in 1994, is Brazilian. And last weekend, Brazilian riders took two of the top six slots at the Duluth invitational at Gwinnett County’s Infinite Energy Arena, where 25 riders overall tested their mettle on some of the “rankest” bulls in the world.
Mr. Palermo, warm but soft spoken, is now a fixture in the sport. With $2.5 million in lifetime earnings, he’s a three-time world championship event winner. He now owns a ranch in Tyler, Texas, where he lives with his wife, three children and a bucking bull christened “Bananinha” (Little Banana) by his daughter.
But it wasn’t always this way, he told Global Atlanta in an interview conducted in a mix of English and Portuguese. And the climb from rural Rio Branco farm hand to the No. 7 bull rider in the world required a series of moves far outside his comfort zone.
Language is a big issue for Brazilian riders in relating both to their colleagues and fans when arriving in the U.S. Some are seen as shy when working through a translator.
“You want to say something, you want to talk, you want to ask something, but you can’t,” Mr. Palermo said, noting that jokes he wanted to share didn’t often translate well.
Mr. Palermo helped blaze the trail for newer Brazilian riders who now find more support than he had.
“Now, everywhere you go you can find Brazilians. Ten years ago, when you came over here you were by yourself and you didn’t know anything,” he told Global Atlanta.
The Brazilians eat and travel together. When not on the road, they sometimes hang out at the Tyler ranch, using Mr. Palermo’s practice arena and sharing in barbecues.
Cowboys may be symbols of individuality in American lore, but these “boys from Brazil,” as an article in The Atlantic called them, are adding an element of camaraderie that resonates with fans and other riders. Mr. Palermo says it comes from the culture back in Brazil, where bull riding is done at huge outdoor festivals. There, riders have to work hard to win favor from the audience. Here, backed by music and pyrotechnics, they’re more like rock stars, he said.
One advantage for Brazilians in the U.S. is their outgoing nature, which appeals especially to older female fans who love the hugs they dish out, Mr. Palermo said. (About half of attendees at live events are women.)
“You can’t believe how many older fans I have. Everywhere you go you’ve got tons of fans, and it’s good because when you get on the bull, it motivates you,” he said. “I like this here in the U.S.: the fans don’t like you because you’re American or something. They like you because you do it well.”
Kasey Hayes, an American bull rider from Kansas, says the influx of Brazilians has been good for the sport in the United States, where the best athletes — both human and bovine — meet to compete. Brazilians are his competitors, but they’re also colleagues and friends who share a love of the sport, he said.
“They really don’t do anything different than us other than speak Portuguese,” Mr. Hayes said. “This is a country that everybody wants to be divided, but I don’t think it’s as divided as they want to make it out to be.”
He’s amazed at what many have achieved by crossing cultures.
“I couldn’t imagine what they go through, but my hat’s off to them because they are great bull riders,” Mr. Hayes said.
Rodeo is nothing new in Brazil; it’s practiced in rural areas all over the country, and huge festivals like Barretos, Jaguariúna and others bring the nation’s best to the region around Sao Paulo.
But PBR, which lifted the highest-intensity event in rodeo out of its traditional context and put it center stage, is trying to do the same thing in Brazil, adding a new level of panache and professionalism to a longstanding cultural tradition.
Brazil has become sort of a farm system for the PBR; it operates a nationwide tour where riders compete to earn points that will get them to the PBR Built Ford Tough Series, the major leagues of bull riding, said Sean Gleason, the association’s chief executive. (At the moment, six of the top 10 riders hail from Brazil, including the top-ranked Paulo Lima.)
The fan base has also grown in the 15 years since the PBR has been televised in the country, and eight years ago, the organization acquired a local bull riding sanctioning organization and began producing its own Brazilian events within existing summer festivals. Indoor arena events like those conducted during winter months in the U.S. have yet to come to fruition.
Brazil is part of a global expansion in the sport that already has made inroads into Australia, New Zealand and Canada, places with existing cowboy tradition and a stock of bulls.
“We’re seeing some major, major growth in our international territories right now,” Mr. Gleason said, noting that Australia is setting records this year.
Somewhat counterintuitively, China is the next big market the PBR hopes to crack.
“China has always had a very deep fascination with the American West, there’s also a herding culture in China, their version of cowboys,” Mr. Gleason said. “We’ve done extremely well as a media property in China, and we think that the live event opportunity for us is a huge opportunity. Candidly, we open the door with spectacle as we continue to build the sport.”
One hurdle in international expansion is getting the bulls into the country, as they’re usually regulated as a food product despite the fact that they’re specially bred for bucking. They’re also expensive to ship, though there’s an established path for shipping from Australia to China.
“When we look at a territory, we look at a path for the bulls and whether we can get them in from any one of the countries that have bucking bulls,” Mr. Gleason said.
Live events using foreign riders will likely be the first entree into China, as it might take awhile to replicate the culture of bull riding endemic to places like Brazil.
Mr. Palermo got his start on his remote ranch near the Amazonian city of Rio Branco, where his mother bought him VCR cassettes of bull riders to watch since TV reception was unavailable. He practiced moves on the couch before mounting young bulls on the ranch.
“I started picking up the way you put the rope, the way you sit on the bull, the way you nod for a bull coming out of the shoot,” he said.
Later he entered into local rodeos and won a $100 prize, more than three months’ salary on the farm.
“I thought, I think I’m going to stick with that,’” he said with a smile.
Once she saw his passion, his mother got him an audience with a promoter in Sao Paulo, and at age 17, he boarded a bus for the cross-country journey to pursue his dream. He won his first rodeo, then racked up 13 motorcycles, a truck and other winnings.
Coming to the U.S. was the natural next step, and he thought he could do well given his arms-length assessment of the bulls here.
“When you look on the TV, it looks easy, but when you get on him, it’s completely different. He’s smart, strong, fast. He has more power than those bulls there. In Brazil they just kick and turn; they’re kind of soft.”
His current nemesis is Air Time, a speckled white bull who can clear four feet in the air and angle his body nearly vertically on the way down, making him extremely difficult to ride for eight seconds, the time it takes to qualify for any points at all. Mr. Palermo steers clear of the No. 1 ranked bull in the final round, when riders get to pick their mounts.
“I respect him, the way he bucks. I really take my hat off to him.”
-Reporting contributed by Pedro Ferreira
Atlanta Ballet is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Culture Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Culture newsletters.