On the Amazon reality show “Beast Games,” contestants participated in a potato sack race, tower climbing task, and coin collection challenge, among others, as they competed for a $10 million cash prize, the single biggest prize in the history of television and streaming. The show, which aired the final episode of its first season on February 13, was Amazon’s biggest unscripted show ever, earning 50 million viewers in its first 25 days.
Now Jimmy Donaldson, the 26-year-old creator who is also known on YouTube as MrBeast, is revealing that he lost “tens of millions” of dollars on the show, but that he has no regrets about using his own money to help fill in the gaps in the show.
“I lost a ton of money filming the show,” Donaldson told Steven Bartlett on a “Diary of a CEO” podcast episode released earlier this month. “It was not a good financial decision to make ‘Beast Games’.”
Jimmy Donaldson. Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Donaldson revealed that the first episode alone required over $15 million to construct the set, which consisted of 1,000 towers that were each 10 feet tall. The set of the second episode, meanwhile, took $14 million to build.
Related: MrBeast Has Grown Up. He Thinks His YouTube Videos Should Too.
Donaldson declined to specify how much the entire 10-episode season cost but said that the show cost more than its $100 million budget overall.
However, when Bartlett asked if he had any regrets, Donaldson said no.
“For me, it was about making season one as good as possible,” Donaldson stated. “I can’t let the YouTube community down.”
According to Donaldson, YouTube creators don’t have a good reputation when it comes to moving over to streaming platforms. He said that even he, as the YouTuber with the most subscribers in the world, struggled to garner interest among streaming executives for his show.
So the stakes weren’t just high for “Beast Games,” they were high for the YouTube community at large, Donaldson said. Now that the show is a success, doors are opening for him and other creators.
“I already know of two creators who have signed deals just based on the success of ‘Beast Games,’ and probably hundreds of millions of dollars [are] going to flow into creators’ pockets just because of ‘Beast Games’ in the next year,” Donaldson claimed.
Related: MrBeast Has Grown Up. He Thinks His YouTube Videos Should Too.
Donaldson also revealed in the interview that while he may be a billionaire on paper, he actually has less than $1 million in his bank account. Though he gives himself a salary, he ensures it is just enough to cover his personal expenses. He reinvests the rest into his brand.
Beast Games is available exclusively on Prime Video. According to Donaldson, the show attracts about 700,000 new unique viewers every day.