The Challenge: All Stars 3 was full of returners, but very few people only did the first two All Stars seasons without appearing on the third. However, Teck fell into that camp, and he’s finally taken to Instagram to explain why he didn’t appear.
Actually, the answer is quite simple. Teck Money wanted to know how much money he was playing for.
On season one, Yes won $500,000. On the second season, Jonna and MJ split the half-million-dollar prize, only receiving $250,000 each. But, apparently TJ used really unclear language when talking to the cast. Throughout filming, he’d say things like “You’ll be competing for a chance to win $500,000,” and it wasn’t until the very end of the game that he revealed the winners would get a share of $500,000.
Teck felt like this was deceptive, and he didn’t want to go on season three without knowing how much he’d be eligible to win. Plus, the show is a big time commitment and mentally stressful. Not knowing the prize would be an additional stressor.
Though, to be fair, he had a 1 in 22 chance of winning season one. He had a 1 in 12 chance of winning the second season. So the prize roughly reflects his odds of winning.
I think a lot of people have the obvious question: Has Teck ever seen The Challenge? Ashley is the only person who won the full prize pool on a main series Challenge. If he watched Total Madness or Double Agents, the seasons that aired prior to his All Stars appearances, he’d know they talk about a “$1 million prize,” but the winners’ paychecks never say that number.
After 25 years of the show, I thought it was kind of obvious that the discussed prize is split, but Season 1 did give it all to Yes, so Teck’s train of thought isn’t too wild. And I’m sure production’s ambiguity was intentional, because people talking about $500,000 makes the show seem more intense than $250,000.
But, hopefully Teck’s appearance check is significant, because he was a breath of fresh air on the show and I’d love to see him back.
Stop Being Polite 