Only three games separate 1st place from 7th as the PBR Team Series season crosses the halfway mark in Anaheim this weekend.

Only aggregate points separate the top three ranked teams, Nashville Stampede, Missouri Thunder, and Carolina Cowboys, as they’re all tied at 11-6.

Right behind them are the Texas Rattlers at 10-6 with the momentum to steal 1st right out from under them.

The Oklahoma Wildcatters have found themselves at a season-high of 7th place with an 8-9 record, and currently hold the largest active win streak at four in a row. They’ll have a puncher’s chance at 1st.

What’s for sure, though, is that the standings will look much different after this weekend; here’s what you need to know about PBR Anaheim before then.

Nashville Stampede:

The Nashville Stampede remain atop the league in the No. 1 spot for the fifth straight event. However, the 2nd-place Missouri Thunder are just .55 aggregate points behind them in the standings, marking the narrowest lead the Stampede have held yet this season.

Nashville’s top four riders are all ranked in the top 15; no other team has more than two.

Nashville has lived and died by those four, and while Riquelmi Silva and Alan de Souza have remained exceptional, Rogério Venâncio and Daniel Feitosa have slipped.

Venâncio and Feitosa each started their seasons riding seven of their first nine bulls, but have covered a combined 3-of-13 since. That drop in production lines up with the Stampede’s struggles at the last two events, finishing 1-2 in both of them after not having a losing weekend all season.

While the Thunder and Cowboys may have caught up to them, the Stampede still lead the league in points (3537.8) and rides (40).

The Stampede will face the Arizona Ridge Riders on Friday in a rematch of what was, so far, the game of the year back on Night 1 of Stampede Days, where both teams scored four and Riquelmi Silva walked it off for the Stampede.

Missouri Thunder:

The Missouri Thunder extended their win streak to nine in a row last weekend, before losing their last game of the event and snapping the streak.

Paulo Eduardo Rossetto has been the main driving force behind the Thunder’s come-up and has ridden his last ten consecutive bulls, a career record. Rossetto is 2nd in the MVP race, riding 14-of-17 on the year and is four rides ahead of 3rd-place Brady Fielder and one ride behind 1st-place Jose Vitor Leme.

Julio Cesar Marques has ridden 9-of-17 and climbed the standings into 8th place.

The Thunder’s next three best, Felipe Furlan, Maverick Smith, and Macaulie Leather, have combined for 15 rides and have each covered at least 40% of their bulls so far this season.

Missouri caught up to Nashville’s win total (11) and ride total (40) last weekend and is now just .55 points from taking 1st place for themselves.

The Thunder begin the weekend with a must-win game against the 3rd-place Carolina Cowboys. The winner not only locks up 2nd place, but has the chance to reach 1st place in the league standings.

The Thunder won their last meeting with the Cowboys 167.3 – 89.1 in their 2025 Championship rematch back in Nashville.

Carolina Cowboys:

The Carolina Cowboys have yet to finish an event with a losing record and are one win away from potentially taking sole ownership of 1st place.

Unlike the Stampede and Thunder, the Cowboys don’t have any riders currently ranked in the top 10, nor have close to the 40 rides they do, instead having just 30. Furthermore, their former best rider this season, Thiago Salgado, has ridden just two of his last nine bulls, and their best rider of last season, Clay Guiton, has ridden 1-of-11 all season.

But the Cowboys keep winning.

They have a 4-2 record in games where they scored just a single ride, and are a perfect 5-0 when they score three or more rides.

In Thiago’s slump, Keyshawn Whitehorse, Jess Lockwood, and Guilherme Valleiras have stepped up.

Whitehorse was bucked off his first six bulls to start the season, but has ridden four of his last seven since.

2x World Champion Jess Lockwood hadn’t seen more than a single out at an event this season, starting 1-for-4, until last weekend when he finished 2-for-3 and tripled his season ride total.

Guilherme Valleiras has emerged as the Thunder’s top rider, ranked 14th in the MVP race. He’s covered 8-of-12, including his last three in a row. Valleiras has improved each year since he began riding in PBR teams back in 2023, peaking at 31st last year. He covered 9-of-22 last year and is just a single ride away from matching his career-high season total.

The Cowboys keep rolling with the punches, but they’ll get a massive test on Friday against the 2nd-place Missouri Thunder. The winner gets a game ahead on the other, and could even move to 1st place overall.

Texas Rattlers:

After an awkward few events, the Texas Rattlers are back where they want to be at 10-7, in 4th place, just a single game behind 1st.

The Rattlers won all three of their games for the first time this season last weekend in Missouri.

Three Rattlers, Brady Fielder, Daniel Keeping, and João Ricardo Vieira, each covered 2-of-3 bulls in the last event, which propelled both Fielder and Keeping into the top-5 of the MVP race, and Vieira into 26th.

Fielder has covered 10-of-17 for 892.3 points and is 3rd in the MVP race. Keeping has covered 9-of-16 for 802.1 points and is 5th.

The Rattlers are currently the only team with multiple riders in the top 5 of the MVP race.

Vieira has covered 6-of-13 this season and is the third and final Rattler to have more than two rides so far. Six Rattlers have two or fewer rides this season.

While that screams inconsistency, the Rattlers have the best average score of any positive team, second-best overall, at 88.77 points per ride. They’re fifth in total rides scored this season at 33-of-85, meaning they’ve been getting the most out of the rides they do score.

While the top three of Carolina, Nashville, and Missouri focus on each other, the Rattlers are just two wins away from taking 1st place for the first time since the first event in Colorado.

They’ll take on the Kansas City Outlaws first, who have won just a single game in their last two events.

Arizona Ridge Riders:

The Arizona Ridge Riders have finished their last two events 1-2 each. They were in 2nd place beforehand and were just two games behind 1st place.

They remain two games behind first but sit in 5th place, with a 9-8 record.

Their top four riders, Elizmar Jeremias, Eduardo Aparecido, Everton Natan da Silva, and Luciano De Castro, were once all inside the top 15 of the MVP race. Now, all four are outside the top 10, and only one, Jeremias, sits in the top 15, in 11th.

Jeremias and Aparecido have each been bucked off their last four bulls, while da Silva and De Castro have each covered three of their last four.

The other six Ridge Riders who’ve recorded an out this season have combined to ride 5-of-28.

Arizona will need more than two of their top four to have productive weekends in Anaheim, or the Ridge Riders will take another trip down the standings.

They begin their weekend with a chance for revenge against the 1st-place Nashville Stampede after losing 346.35 – 356.3 in a thriller back at Stampede Days.

Austin Gamblers:

Much like their Lone Star State rival Texas Rattlers, the Austin Gamblers have had an irritating first half of the season and have yet to get over .500.

They’ve had one constant, though: Jose Vitor Leme, who has covered his last 12 bulls in a row and currently holds the longest Team Series ride streak in league history. He’s covered 15-of-17 bulls this season and leads the MVP race. He’ll have the opportunity to extend his streak to a potential 15 in a row, which would break his career-long ride streak of 14.

Sage Kimzey has been Austin’s next best, ranked 25th currently, and has ridden 6-of-13, but hasn’t covered consecutive bulls in over a month.

No. 37 Kaique Pacheco and No. 33 Dalton Kasel have bucked off their last four and three bulls, respectively, while No. 32 Dener Barbosa has covered three of his last four.

Despite this, the Gamblers found success last weekend in Missouri, finishing 2-1 and scoring 8-of-15.

Both of those wins came against the top-seeded Stampede and Thunder. Vinicius Pinheiro Correa scored in each of those games, which were his first two rides of the season.

The Gamblers will get a great chance to start their weekend with a win, though, as they take on the 10th-place New York Mavericks, whom they defeated three rides to one in their first meeting this season.

Oklahoma Wildcatters:

The Oklahoma Wildcatters had their best weekend yet, finishing 3-0 with a positive event record for the first time this season.

The Wildcatters scored just 5-of-15, though, led by Kaiden Loud, who rode 2-of-3.

Loud has ridden 6-of-11 on the season and enters Anaheim 22nd in the MVP race. He has a better average score per ride than anyone ranked higher than him at 89.37, besides Austin Richardson, who’s just .03 points better.

Eduardo Matos leads Oklahoma in 20th, riding 7-of-17 at 88.47 points per ride.

As a team, the Wildcatters have the 3rd-best average ride score in the league at 88.52 points per ride. However, they’ve scored just 25-of-85 so far, the fewest rides in the league.

Matos and Loud are the only Wildcatters who’ve covered at least 40% of their bulls.

Their next three best riders, Kase Hitt, Trace Redd, and Winy dos Santos, have ridden a combined 10-of-40, covering in just 25% of their outs.

Regardless, the Wildcatters are finally out of 9th place, now in 7th with an 8-9 record. They’ll have the chance to grow their win streak to five in a row on Friday when they take on the Florida Freedom, who are coming off their second winless weekend of the season.

Florida Freedom:

The Florida Freedom finished Thunder Days 0-3 for their second winless weekend in the last three events. The Freedom have gone 2-7 in that span and have dropped to 8th in the standings with a 7-10 overall record, matching their loss total from last season already.

Despite the losses piling up and the fact that they’ll be without 2x League MVP John Crimber until at least October, the Freedom have held onto the best average score in the league at 88.95 points per ride.

Austin Richardson has led the team in Crimber’s absence. He’s 10th in the MVP race and has ridden 8-of-17. He has the best average score of anyone in the top 20 at 89.4 points per ride.

João Lucas Campos is Florida’s next best, in 23rd, and has covered 6-of-11 for 88.56 points per ride. Alex Cerqueira is behind him in 27th and has ridden 6-of-16 for 87.89 points per ride.

No other Freedom rider has ridden more than 35% of their bulls so far.

Their weekend in Anaheim begins against the Wildcatters, who are looking to extend their win streak to five in a row.

Kansas City Outlaws:

The Kansas City Outlaws have had the worst record of any team over the last two events at 1-5.

They’ve dropped to 9th place in the standings with a 6-11 record and are now within two games of the last-place Mavericks.

The team has hit a rough patch, starting with Sandro Batista, who has bucked off his last four bulls and five of his last six. Batista once held a spot in the top 4, but has dropped to 9th.

Hayden Welsh, who is 5-for-8 this season, was absent from last week’s event and won’t start this weekend either. The Outlaws have been 3-2 when Welsh scores this season.

That has allowed Cassio Dias and Koltin Hevalow to catch him in the standings. However, Dias and Hevalow have combined to ride 10-of-26 so far, just about 38%.

No other Outlaw has ridden more than 25% of their bulls.

They got a tough draw starting their weekend against the Texas Rattlers, who are coming off an undefeated Thunder Days.

New York Mavericks:

The Mavericks picked up their fourth win of the season in Missouri last weekend, with five different Mavericks scoring.

João Henrique Lucas scored in both of his outs and improved to 4-of-8 on the season, becoming the Mavericks’ 3rd-highest-ranked rider, at 39th. He will start for the Mavericks again this Friday.

Mauricio Gulla Moreira and Marco Rizzo lead the team in 12th and 13th place, respectively, and have each scored eight rides.

Leonardo Castro and Leandro Zampollo, however, have ridden a combined 6-of-26. Zampollo had his third scoreless event of the season last week, and has yet to find a remedy.

The Mavericks have scored more than two rides in a game just twice this season, and won both times they did.

They’ll need to score at least three rides against the Austin Gamblers on Friday if they want to inch closer to escaping 10th place.