Boots and western wear are beginning to overtake the Strip on the eve of the 48th annual National Finals Rodeo.

And for the first time since the event moved to the Thomas & Mack Center in 1985, the eve of the world's biggest rodeo falls on a Wednesday.

When Las Vegas Events, which promotes and operates the NFR, agreed to a five-year contract extension with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association last year, its key negotiating point was to start the 10-day event on a Thursday instead of the traditional Friday.

Previously, the NFR began on the first Friday in December and ended on a Sunday afternoon.

"We'd been trying to have an earlier start for years," said Michael Gaughan, owner of the South Point and a LVE board member. "It gives us another weekday of action, and a lot of people didn't want to go to the rodeo on (the final) Sunday."

The LVE and LVCVA agreed to pay the PRCA $2 million annually to keep the NFR in Las Vegas through 2014. Last year the payment was $400,000.

Beginning next year, Gaughan said, the NFR will begin on the first Thursday in December.

Gaughan said he also might try next year to lure the annual Benny Binion's Bucking Horse and Bull Sale from Thomas & Mack, where it is held on two weekdays during the NFR's second week.

• INJURIES -- Cody DeMoss of Heflin, La., will start the NFR Thursday as the money leader in saddle bronc riding, but the 25-year-old has been fighting the effects of torn groin muscles he sustained during a September rodeo. ...

In bull riding, reigning world champion Matt Austin is nursing injuries to his abdomen and groin, and third-ranked Wesley Silcox will compete with a sore shoulder and coming off knee surgery.

Austin suffered his injury Oct. 19 at Liberty, Texas, and hasn't ridden a bull since. He had to withdraw from the Nov. 10-12 Texas Stampede ProRodeo Tour Championship in Dallas. He admits he won't be 100 percent in Las Vegas.