These robots clearly cost a lot in both money and time, so it was a little disappointing that there were no prizes at stake other than the title and the nut trophy. A $100,000 grand prize would have been a drop in the bucket for ABC and would have made everything more suspenseful.
shareIt comes with a $5K cash prize. At least it used to anyways.
shareThere was a recent article/interview with Kenny Florian (one of the hosts) which I saw on some MMA fighting website dicussing BattleBots. This is one of the things Kenny had to say:
"I mean, some of these bots were almost $100,000 for a competition where you can win $60,000, so it was a labor of love for a lot of these guys."
I don't know if that means that 60 grand was the first prize, or if it means 60 grand spread amongst all contestants. I would think he was referring to first prize only.
Here's a link to the article/interview:
http://www.mmafighting.com/2015/8/9/9118187/kenny-florian-on-the-mechanized-chaos-of-battlebots-and-the-dangers
Now if that bastard so much as twitches, I'm gonna blow him right to Mars.
No one does these competitions to make money. They do it because it's a hobby to pass the time, since a lot of them are retired.
shareUnlike the original, every one of these teams is sponsored - some by multiple companies.. They put in all the labor, but the sponsors pick up the tab for the bot. And teams like Bite Force, whose owner is the founder and CEO of a multimillion dollar telepresence company, and Ghost Raptor whose owner is an engineer at Neato Robotics, it's nothing for them to pay for the bot.
share