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In brief: If you lost tens of millions of dollars on something, you’d likely spend most of your life regretting it. But not when you’re a multi-millionaire (or billionaire) like Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast. He’s admitted that Amazon’s Beast Games cost him tens of millions of dollars of his own money, despite having a budget of more than $100 million.
Beast Games broke a lot of records. In addition to paying out the largest cash prize in game show history, $10 million, the 50 million viewers it attracted during its first month made it Amazon’s most watched unscripted series ever.
The prize money for the overall winner – there were a lot of big cash prizes given away before the final episode – was supposed to be $5 million, but a contestant gambled on a coin flip to double it. The extra $5 million came from the YouTube star’s own pocket – it seems he thought nobody would risk flipping the coin and being eliminated if they lost.
“It was not a good financial decision to make Beast Games,” MrBeast said in an interview with YouTube channel The Diary of a CEO. “I lost money. I would have more money if I didn’t film it.”
“I lost a ton of money filming this show, that came out of my pocket,” MrBeast added, referring to the coin flip. “We spent way too much money on it. I lost tens of millions of dollars on that show. I’m an idiot.” He did add, though, that he doesn’t regret making Beast Games.
“For me, it was about making season one as good as possible,” MrBeast stated. “I can’t let the YouTube community down.”
Exactly how much Beast Games cost to make hasn’t been revealed as MrBeast has “been advised not to say.” He did claim it was more than $100 million, with the first two episodes alone costing $50 million. A lot of that went on the massive sets, which in the first episode consisted of 1,000 towers that were each 10 feet tall. The set of the second episode cost $14 million to build.
For comparison, each episode of Amazon’s The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, the most expensive TV series ever made, cost $58 million per episode in season 1 ($62 million with inflation).
According to MrBeast, some of the other record-breaking facts from Beast Games include the largest sets in history, most world records in history, largest cash prize in history, most winners in history, most contestants in history, most cameras, and most miles of camera cables.
MrBeast also revealed that while he is a billionaire on paper, he has less than $1 million in his bank account. The salary he pays himself is just enough to cover personal expenses, with the rest being reinvested into his brand.
It seems that one record Beast Games hasn’t broken is for the highest percentage of happy contestants. A class action filed by five anonymous contestants alleges widespread mistreatment, including sexual harassment, lack of medical care, inadequate food, and unpaid expenses and wages, as well as misrepresentations about the number of contestants on the show.
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