What Does the Winner of ¡°Survivor¡± Get? All About the Prize Fund (and Why Losing Contestants Still Get Paid)The winner of ¡¯Survivor¡¯ season 48 took home the grand prize on May 21, while other contestants were also paid for their timeSeason 48 of?Survivor?came to an end on May 21 The winner took home the $1 million prize fund All the contestants reportedly receive a paycheck depending on their performance on the reality TV show
?has wrapped up another intense season! The hit reality TV competition show began airing on??in 2000 and has challenged contestants to survive in deserted circumstances while competing in various challenges, forming alliances and voting out competitors. Ever since the series launched, it has awarded the winner the title of Sole Survivor and $1 million. The??finale, which aired on May 21, saw??¡ª Joe Hunter, Eva Erickson, Kyle Fraser, Kamilla Karthigesu and Mitch Guerra ¡ª competing for the grand prize and Sole Survivor title.
While only one person got to take home the $1 million grand prize, the remainder of the contestants reportedly also received some amount of money depending on how well they did in the competition. "I think people are always surprised to learn that we do earn money,¡± Corinne Kaplan, who starred on seasons 17 and 26, said in a 2021 episode of the??podcast. ¡°The same pot of money exists no matter how many players there are.¡± PEOPLE has reached out to CBS for comment. So, how much money have the past winners and contestants on?Survivor?won? Here's everything to know about what the?Survivor?winner gets.
What does the winner of?Survivor?get?However, the winner doesn't get to pocket the entire $1 million, since thousands of dollars have to go to federal and state taxes. The total amount of money a winner receives depends on their state's income taxes.
It's crucial that the winner pay the taxes, as season 1 winner??spent nearly??for not paying up. He told PEOPLE in 2023 that legal fees and missed work "more than wiped out the money." As inflation has increased over the years, some viewers have questioned why the prize fund hasn't proportionally increased. June Deery, professor of communication and media at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, spoke about the fund to??in February 2025, saying, "The coveted commodity on most reality shows is not only the prize but the media exposure. Even if participants aren¡¯t catapulted into A-list celebrityhood, the?attention capital?they accumulate on TV can be monetized online ¡ª?from pitching sponsors or regular YouTube ads.¡±
Has?Survivor?ever increased the prize fund? The $1 million prize fund has stayed the same since season 1 in 2000. However, the CBS show doubled the jackpot to $2 million once to celebrate the 40th season,?, in 2019. The season featured 20 winners from past seasons of?Survivor?to compete for the highest prize fund in history.??was named the winner
"The $2 million prize was all CBS," host??told??in 2020. "The truth is, Kelly Kahl is the guy at CBS who back in season 2 moved?Survivor?to go up against?Friends. And we beat?Friends?in the ratings and his career was really made in that moment."
Probst continued, "He's been invested in?Survivor?forever. And he has given us free rein to do what we want for a long time. And this season he said, 'Can you try to make winners happen? And can we give them a $2 million prize?' " How much do the second and third-place finishers get?Even though they couldn't snag the title of Sole Survivor, contestants who get second and third place also walk away with a significant amount of money. The runner-up receives $100,000 and the third place finisher gets $85,000, according to?. Kaplan, who appeared on seasons 17 and 26, also confirmed the prize amounts during a 2021 appearance on the?Trading Secrets?podcast.
Do all?Survivor?contestants get paid? As Kaplan claimed on her?Trading Secrets?podcast appearance, the amount of money a contestant wins depends on how they placed and how many people are competing on a certain season. According to Kaplan, "the same pot of money exists no matter how many players there are," so if there are more contestants in a season, then each person gets less money. The sooner the contestants get eliminated, the less money they take home. "So, what happens is, roughly, the first person voted out makes like $2,500, [and] it goes up very incrementally," Kaplan claimed. "Those people only make a few thousand, and there's a couple hundred [dollars] difference between them." However, once there are enough people eliminated and people qualify to be members of the jury, their payout "starts going up by $10K," according to Kaplan. "It works backwards," she explained, meaning that each person on the jury makes $10,000 less than the contestant who made it one place ahead of them (excluding the winner).
Did contestants get paid to appear on the live reunion?While the live reunion existed, it was another opportunity for every contestant to take home more money. Kaplan claimed that regardless of where a contestant finished in the season, everyone was offered $10,000 to participate in the intense live reunion. Per Kaplan's understanding, "The reason that that ticket is so high is because most people, if they were wronged on the show or whatever, if there wasn¡¯t a big ticket attached to it, you might just be like. 'F--- it I¡¯m not going,' so they make that very high." What was the Sia Prize?Like many?Survivor?fans, singer??hasn't always been thrilled by who won the reality TV show. The superfan decided to take matters into her own hands in 2016 when she gave??$50,000 of her own money after he didn¡¯t win season 32. She decided to continue giving money to her favorite contestants and named the award the ¡°.¡± The award continued for eight years and 14 seasons, during which time she gave a total sum of over $1 million to her favorite contestants. However, Probst announced in 2024 that the??after season 46. "After eight years, 14 seasons, 19 players and over $1,000,000 awarded,?Survivor?is officially bringing the Sia Prize to a triumphant end!¡±?He posted to his Instagram Stories in May 2024. ¡°So it is with tremendous gratitude and admiration to Sia that we bring to a close one of the most unique relationships a TV show could ever have with a pop star of Sia¡¯s global wattage.¡± Among the special Sia Prize winners included seven players to whom she gave $100,000 ¡ª including Rick Devens (season 38),?Elaine Stott (39), Janet Carbin (39), Drea Wheeler (42), Jesse Lopez (43),??and Katurah Topps (45). The other 11 contestants who won the coveted award were Donathan Hurley (36), Davie Rickenbacker (37), Aurora McCreary (38), Joe Anglim (38), Jamal Shipman (39), Owen Knight (43), Ryan Medrano (43), Lauren Harpe (44), Carson Garrett (44), Jake O¡¯ Kane (45) and Kaleb Gebrewold (45).?
Mary Live long and prosper
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