World's best bull riders compete in Chicago Invitational for second event of 2020 PBR season

ROSEMONT (WLS) -- The 35 best bull riders and bulls in the world competed at the Chicago Invitational over the weekend, where 20-year-old Daylon Swearinger won the second event of the 2020 Professional Bull Riders season.

Professional Bull Riders, or PBR, is the world's most prestigious bull riding league. The Chicago Invitational, part of PBR's Unleash The Beast tour, is a three-round competition held at the Allstate Arena in north suburban Rosemont.

PBR considers both the riders and the bulls to be athletes, and each is assigned a score for their performance during a ride. Bovine athletes travel along with riders throughout the country during the season.

Swearinger put in a strong performance all weekend, but claimed victory with a 91.75 score during his final ride on Big Black. He earned $37,475 in winnings and catapulted to No. 3 in the world standings.

The following weekend, riders and bulls travel to Manchester, New Hampshire, for the third event of the 2020 Unleash The Beast rodeo tour.

Two weeks following the Chicago Invitational, animal rights demonstrators gathered outside of a separate rodeo for the Professional Championship Bull Riders league. They claimed rodeos exhibit animal abuse through the use of "electric prods," "beatings," and "confined spaces."

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This article was updated on February 3 to include the statements of animal rights protesters at a separate bull riding event.