Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Ride’ on Prime Video, a Reality TV Show That Takes Viewers Inside The Sport of Professional Bull Riding

Football’s dangerous. Basketball’s fluid. Baseball’s got intense bursts of action, and soccer’s full of characters. What about a sport that can do all of these in eight seconds? In The Ride, a new reality series debuting on Prime Video, professional bull riding gets the dramatized-series-treatment, and it’s a look inside a sport many people might not know a thing about.

THE RIDE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An intense montage of fast, wild and violent bull-riding scenes is scored by thumping music and a chorus of voices talking about how crazy anyone has to be to do this sport. It’s a good start!

The Gist: Professional bull riding is a growing sport, and they’re approaching new avenues in order to spread the appeal of their sport. A reality show is a big part of this, of course–that’s what The Ride is here for–but a change in format is also part of that. In the first episode of the show, we follow as newly-formed teams conduct an NFL-style draft for the top riders in the sport. It’s a handy jumping off point for a series hoping to introduce a new set of viewers to their characters.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The obvious parallel here is Netflix’s Formula One racing-focused Drive To Survive, or its golf- and tennis- focused clones Full Swing and Break Point. There’s tremendous upside for streaming services in taking lesser-known sports and elevating them through the reality-show treatment, and that’s obviously what Amazon is shooting for with The Ride.

Our Take: There’s a lot of work for The Ride to do in its first episode, and only 40 minutes of runtime for it to cram everything in.

First, they’ve got to introduce viewers to a sport that many aren’t familiar with. Sure, professional bull riding is described by the PBR’s CEO as “the fastest-growing sport in America” — I thought that was pickleball? — and there’s undoubtedly a significant and devoted fanbase already. But the average ESPN viewer or reality-show consumer probably doesn’t know a whole lot about the sport.

Next, they’ve got to introduce the personalities–a key for any reality show, and a critical part in the sports-reality-show format perfected by Netflix in Drive To Survive, the Formula One racing-focused show that’s led to a huge surge in F1 viewership in the United States. If you’re going to make people care about a sport they haven’t cared about to date, you’re going to need to show them some characters they can care about.

Finally, you’ve got to show some action, otherwise it’s just The Bachelor with cowboy hats. The appeal of professional bull riding is the intense action, and The Ride breaks up its interview segments with bursts of real riding action.

It’s a lot to cram into one show, but The Ride does a fairly competent job of pulling it all together. They make sure you know who the biggest star is–two-time champion Jose Vitor Leme–and they position the other riders in relation to the superstar. It’s an entertaining package, and a fun little watch, especially if your only experience with the PBR tour to date is seeing “oh, that’s what’s at the arena this week?”.

Whether it does for bull-riding what Drive To Survive has done for racing is yet to be seen, but The Ride is a capable packaging up of the sport, a neat infomercial for anyone looking for a new sport to follow.

Sex and Skin: No sex, but there’s some foul language.

Parting Shot: In the bowels of an arena after an event, an injured rider in obvious pain is tended to by an athletic trainer. Another rider reflects: “This sport isn’t something you do thinking you’re gonna get by it without ever getting hurt, that’s just the nature of the beast. If there’s one word for this sport, would it not be danger?”

Sleeper Star: It’s too early to tell from the first episode, but all signs point to two-time PBR World Champion Jose Vitor Leme, described by a fellow rider as a “five-foot-three Brazilian Tom Brady”, someone with a chance to be “the greatest of all time.”

Most Pilot-y Line: The opening scene of the show hits you with a series worth of catchphrases, slogans and mission statements right off the bat. “I’m still struggling trying to figure out how to explain why somebody would want to do this,” one rider notes. “It’s like trying to control an explosion”, another says. “It’s the last gladiator sport”, we hear, and then the unsaid is said: “nobody wants there to be a wreck, but no one’s gonna turn away when it happens.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. It won’t grab every viewer, but if you’re looking for a new sport to get into, The Ride provides a handy point of entry for one a lot of people don’t know much about.

Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky who publishes the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter.