The Challenge
Also known as	Road Rules: All Stars Real World/Road Rules Challenge
Genre	Reality competition
Created by	Mary-Ellis Bunim Jonathan Murray
Presented by	Eric Nies Mark Long Jonny Moseley Dave Mirra T. J. Lavin
Starring	The Challenge contestants
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	41
No. of episodes	581(list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Fred Birckhead Justin Booth Lisa Fletcher Scott Freeman Gil Goldschein Emer Harkin Kevin Lee Julie Pizzi Ryan Smith Danny Wascou
Running time	30 minutes 60 minutes 90 minutes
Production companies	Bunim/Murray Productions MTV Entertainment Studios Paramount Television Studios[1]
Original release
Network	MTV
Release	April 20, 1998 (1998-04-20) – present
Related
The Real World Road Rules The Challenge: All Stars The Challenge: USA The Challenge: World Championship

The Challenge (originally known asRoad Rules: All Stars, followed byReal World/Road Rules Challenge) is areality competition show onMTV that is aspin-off of two of the network'sreality shows,The Real World andRoad Rules and originally featured alumni from these two shows. Casting forThe Challenge has expanded over the years to include contestants who debuted onThe Challenge itself, and other MTV franchises. Starting in 2018, new contestants were chosen outside of the MTV network programming. The contestants compete against one another in various extreme challenges to avoid elimination. The winners of the final challenge win the competition and typically share a large cash prize.^[2][3]The Challenge is currently hosted byT. J. Lavin.

The series premiered on April 20, 1998.^[4] The show was originally titledRoad Rules: All Stars, and had notableReal World alumni participated in aRoad Rules style road-trip. It was renamedReal World/Road Rules Challenge for the2nd season, then later abridged to simplyThe Challenge by the show's19th season. Since thefourth season, each season has supplied the show with a uniquesubtitle, such asRivals. Each season consists of a format and theme from which the subtitle is derived.

The show's forty-first season, titledVets & New Threats, premiered on July 30, 2025.^[5]

The Challenge casts are season-specific as the cast varies from season to season. The casts are made up of contestants originating from one ofThe Challenge's related TV programs and, in a few seasons, previously unknown contestants. The cast usually contains both "veterans" (or vets) and "rookies". Veterans are thought of as players that have won at least oneChallenge season or have appeared on several seasons of the show; Rookies refer to newer players. Many recent alumni come from various reality shows includingSurvivor,The Amazing Race,Are You the One?,Big Brother,Ex on the Beach,Vanderpump Rules andLove Island as well as non-reality entertainment and sports programs.

A season's typical multitude of cast members are usually divided up into separateteams or pairs according to a certain criterion, which varies from season to season. The criteria that teams have been arranged by over the show's history have ranged from: gender, the contestants' original show, heroic or villainous status, rivals, countries, family members and ex-romantic partners. Contestants compete in numerous missions in order to win prizes and advance in the overall game. The format of the competition varies by season. In elimination rounds, contestants or teams compete against each other to determine who is eliminated from the season. Each season has its own, distinctive elimination round, distinguished from those of other seasons. Sporadically throughout the course of each episode, various contestants are seen privately expressing themselves throughreality TV confessionals about the events taking place on the show.

Someseasons, however, have used entirely different formats from the typical ones:The Island is oneChallenge in particular that adopted many features atypical toReal World/Road Rules Challenge, instead taking concepts like that of another reality television game showSurvivor; as another example, the first season (Road Rules: All Stars) ironically, only included contestants fromThe Real World and consisted of a much smaller cast before the show was completely restructured in its second season. Except for season one, amonetary prize has always been the award for winning the final mission.

The series initially used no hosts but instead a former cast member who had been kicked off his or her season, providing assignments as "Mr." or "Ms. Big" (David "Puck" Rainey,David Edwards, andGladys Sanabria served this role). After one season without anyone in this role, the series began using hosts:Eric Nies andMark Long co-hosted a season, andJonny Moseley andDave Mirra hosted various seasons beforeT. J. Lavin became the show's regular host by the11th season.^[6]

Over time, a playful rivalry developed between the cast ofRoad Rules andThe Real World, with the former occasionally attempting to prank the latter while it was in production.^[7] During the filming ofThe Real World: Boston andRoad Rules: Islands, the two casts met while theReal World cast was vacationing inSan Juan, Puerto Rico. Producers set up a face-off where both teams would compete for a cash prize. The episode brought in high ratings and this set ideas in motion to produce the spin-off series.^[8] The series started airing in April 1998 asRoad Rules: All Stars, and featured cast members from five seasons ofThe Real World. Another face-off calledAquaGames, hosted byKit Hoover andMark Long, was betweenThe Real World: Seattle andRoad Rules: Down Under and aired as part of those shows later in 1998.

AfterRoad Rules: All Stars, producers decided to include former cast members ofRoad Rules in the series as well. In the next season, two six-member teams were sent around the world in a competition to see which show could best the other in head-to-head competition. The series followed the format for three years.^[9] Following the successful boom of reality television in thenew millennium, from shows likeSurvivor, producers decided to add new elements to the series. 2002'sBattle of the Seasons was the first season to depart from the previous six-member structure and brought in a large group of former cast members to compete in one location. The show added in eliminations, with earlier season incorporated voting off by majority, that eventually changed to elimination competitions between cast members.^[7][10]

Contestants are various reality television cast members from different television shows. Originally the cast consisted ofThe Real World andRoad Rules alumni, and cast who debuted directly onThe Challenge, but eventually MTV expanded it to other alumni from other reality shows and networks.^[11][12][13]

The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars (originally known asThe Challenge: Champs vs. Pros) is a special recurring mini-series ofThe Challenge.^[14] In each multi-week event, alumni fromThe Challenge compete against celebrities to win money for charity.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]}

In 2020,Road Rules: USA – The First Adventure alumnus Mark Long started asking his social media followers if they'd be interested in seeing former cast members ofThe Challenge coming together for a new version of the series. The movement was titled "We Want OGs." After his idea went viral, he announced a partnership with Bunim/Murray Productions to further develop his project and began gauging interest from potential former cast members.^[21] On February 24, 2021, the show was officially announced asThe Challenge: All Stars.^[22]

In February 2022, different series ofThe Challenge were announced, this included three international adaptations for Australia, Argentina, the UK, as well asThe Challenge: USA, another American series which aired onCBS with CBS reality show alumni. All editions of the series aired locally on a Paramount-affiliated network and were available globally to stream onParamount+. These four series were followed byThe Challenge: World Championship, which features winners and notable players from the international adaptations and the main series ofThe Challenge competing for a grand prize.^{[23][24][25][26][27][28]} On May 22, 2023, following the conclusion ofWorld Championship, CBS announced that a second season ofThe Challenge: USA would premiere on August 10, 2023.^[29] On June 27, 2024, it was announced that aSwedish version ofThe Challenge would be airing onTV4 starting on August 12, 2024, marking the first series in the franchise to be produced outside ofBunim/Murray Productions.^[30][31][32]

Versions

In March 2010, prior to the airing of the19th season,MTV aired a specialspring break spin-off ofThe Challenge filmed at the Playa Suites Hotel inAcapulco, Mexico.^[36] The five-episode spin-off was titledSpring Break Challenge and aired from March 22–26, 2010.^[37] The season featured sevenChallenge alum who coached teams of college-aged friends through various challenges and elimination rounds in an attempt to win $50,000 in cash and prizes.Fresh Meat alumnus Evan Starkman andThe Real World: Key West alumna Paula Meronek served as broadcasters, withT. J. Lavin as the host.^[38][39] Camila Nakagawa, a contestant of the winning team, went on to appear on future challenges, with her debut season beingCutthroat.^[40][41] Nakagawa is the only player to appear on the main series.

The Challenge: CT's Getting Married is a two-part special revolving around the wedding ofChallenge starChris "CT" Tamburello and Lilianet Solares. MTV released the trailer and premiere date on November 20, 2018. The two-week special premiered on December 11, 2018, and concluded on December 18, 2018.^[42][43]

The Challenge: Untold History is a six-part documentary aboutThe Challenge. It featured over 30 former competitors and several celebrity fans, discussing the show and telling behind the scenes stories. It premiered on September 21, 2022, on MTV. A sneak preview was shown during theUnscripted portion of the2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards.^[44]

The Challenge: Home Turf is aYouTube docuseries which premiered on January 29, 2024. The docuseries focuses on eight cast members visiting their hometown and sharing stories about their career and upbringing.^[45]

• MTV's OfficialThe Challenge website
• MTV.ca's OfficialThe Challenge website
• TV.com series reference pageArchived June 29, 2008, at theWayback Machine
• TVGuide.com series reference page
• The Challenge atIMDb

• The Challenge (TV series)
• Television series by Bunim/Murray Productions
• Television series by Paramount Television
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