When Paul Andrews saddled up and took the reins on the Nationwide Western Inventory Present and Advanced in November 2010, he was extra conversant in the brilliant lights of the NBA and the NHL than the dusty arenas for cows and horses.
“My children and grandkids had grown up going to Nuggets and Avalanche video games their complete lives,” mentioned Andrews, who plans to retire as president and CEO after the upcoming Nationwide Western Inventory Present, Jan. 11-26, 2025. “They weren’t fairly certain what to consider this rodeo stuff.”
As the previous government vp for Denver’s Kroenke Sports activities Enterprises, Andrews led the father or mother firm of the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Colorado Rapids — in addition to Ball Area and Dick’s Sporting Items Park, which he’d helped develop.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t his first rodeo. Andrews’ grandfather, Paul Pattridge, confirmed champion cattle on the Nationwide Western Inventory Present for 44 years. A well-known American Polled Hereford Cattle producer with a 5,500-acre ranch north of Golden, he sat on the Inventory Present board and immersed Andrews in a wealthy tradition that sparked a few of his earliest recollections.
That familiarity helped him lead the Inventory Present via among the hardest challenges in its 118-year historical past, together with the COVID pandemic, which scuttled the 2021 occasion. That was solely the second time it had been canceled since 1906; the opposite was in 1915 as a result of a “hoof and mouth” illness epidemic among the many animals.
Most pressing has been the drive to remake the general advanced, positioned round Humboldt Road and forty seventh Avenue, with new and upgraded buildings that may sustain with attendance development, technological innovation and numerous income sources. Nonetheless below building, it’s a multi-pronged, $1 billion venture that’s anticipated to be wrangled in time for the January 2026 present.
Andrews did his half with the $150 million fundraising marketing campaign, Honoring the Legacy, which is able to carry over to a predecessor more likely to be named in summer time 2025. It’s seen an enthusiastic response due to director Angela Lieurance and chairman Pete Coors (the Inventory Present’s 2011 Citizen of the West), each of them properly linked to Denver’s enterprise and political worlds.
“I felt just like the grand opening of the brand new buildings could be an excellent time to transition to a brand new CEO,” Andrews mentioned. “Then they will begin their profession with a clear slate of buildings, no firm debt, and a enterprise mannequin that’s sustainable.”
Inside a couple of yr of his begin, Andrews had already worn out the Nationwide Western Heart’s $10 million debt and created optimistic money circulate. Regardless of drops in attendance through the COVID period, it bolted previous 700,000 through the 16-day occasion in January 2024, with revenues “rising accordingly,” in keeping with the Inventory Present.
The custom of it
Andrews is a hands-on CEO, and he sometimes strolls the grounds of the advanced all through the times that the inventory present is on the town. He likes to speak to as many individuals as he can and to make it possible for occasions are going as easily as attainable.
“I really like the custom of it,” he mentioned, noting that final yr’s inventory present included 29 rodeos and 800 distributors. “We’re one of many high 4 rodeos on the planet, and most reveals are bought out. Now we have a livestock present you received’t see wherever else. It’s completely historic.”
“From one minute to the following, Paul might be speaking to a ranch hand, a high government, or a political chief,” mentioned Pat Grant, former Nationwide Western Heart CEO, in a press release. “He labored immediately with the mayor’s workplace and Denver Metropolis Council on the passage of poll measure 2C in 2015 to fund the Nationwide Western Heart, and in addition labored with the Colorado Legislature in 2021 through the pandemic to safe funding for operations and was profitable on each counts.”
Andrews, who will nonetheless seek the advice of with the Inventory Present after altering hats, is enthusiastic about making it the end-all, be-all Western occasion. His mission is to develop the worldwide model into one thing that pulls not solely assist for its scholarships, artwork exhibitions, and livestock heritage, however the common European vacationer searching for a style of genuine western historical past and tradition.
That’s ever-more seemingly. The variety of Nationwide Western Advanced’s year-round bookings exterior of the Inventory Present have greater than doubled below Andrews, to 250 occasions. A 2024 Widespread Sense Institute report put the annual regional financial impression of the Inventory Present at $171 million. That’s greater than the entire dwelling video games for the College of Colorado Buffaloes, greater than the NBA finals for the Denver Nuggets, and greater than twice the Main League Baseball All-Star Sport.
“Paul’s dedication, power, and enterprise acumen have been of incalculable worth to the Nationwide Western’s latest successes,” mentioned Doug Jones, chairman of the Western Inventory Present Affiliation board, in a press release. “His successor has some massive boots to fill.”
Andrews, nevertheless, consistently says “we” as a substitute of “me.” A staff made all this, he mentioned, not only one individual.
“You expose folks to this and so they in a short time embrace it,” he mentioned. “However what it’s, it’s is America at its most interesting. We’re bringing city and rural collectively. We’re placing politics apart so we are able to get pleasure from every others’ firm. To me that’s as American because it will get.”
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