I did say 'each'. The old prize was a million split two ways.

Mea Culpa

Clearly you two would be the bickering team.

I imagine Starshine would be a great teammate, 'specially if they have a leg in England

We also have a potential reschedule. CBS announced that in order to make it easier on NFL teams with afternoon games, start times for the second shift will be pushed back ten minutes. Guess what this does to the primetime lineup.

Right. And last year, CBS acknowledged the average TAR episode was stalled out by twenty-seven minutes. So rather than, say, moving it to a more honesty-friendly night, they're considering pushing all the Sunday night programs back by fifteen minutes so as to make life that much more of a lie for your DVR. Whee. Save those Emails and online petitions, people: Goodell doesn't care.

And yet you still bash living on the left coast...

It's not a standard prize increase: it's a twist. To get the doubled money, you have to win and take first place on the initial leg. So there's one team eligible to try for extra and everyone else is stuck with the usual.

Also: three continents, nine countries, and 25,000 miles? That? Is a very short course. We already know that's North America (Los Angeles), Europe, and Asia, with stops in the Netherlands (site of a Roadblock Switchback, according to CBS), Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Why the cutdown on the mileage? Saving cash in case that twist somehow worked out for the one team with a chance? CBS cutting back in order to pay off 3?

And yes, there are Chippendales. So it goes.

http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/the-amazing-race-21-cast-and-new-2-million-grand-prize-details-announced-by-cbs-13792.php

There are also three-hour episode start delays. So it will not go for some time.

I hate that twist - one team has a chance to double their winnings but the others don't? BS.

Though I find nothing wrong with Chippendales...

Nor do I. It's the advance near-certain knowledge of approaching double standards which has me fuming.

Would a team of two female exotic dancers be shown in costume?

Not without generating a protest letter ratio of twenty thousand to none.

How much do you want to bet that the final challenges would be rigged to favour one of the other teams if one team has a chance to double their winnings in the finale?

the team that wins the initial leg may have a target on their backs real soon. The other teams might consider them even bigger threats - they will have been a strong team to win that leg; and they will have more motivation than any other team.

The first leg is a crapshoot with 11 teams competing, so this is an obvious hedge by CBS. The likelihood of having to pay double is no higher than 9.09%, and there's a good chance the leg 1 winner will be philiminated before the finale.

LAST EDITED ON 09-02-12 AT 11:22 PM (EST)

My son was running the numbers of past seasons from rough memory-- thought it has happened 6 times or 30 percent of the time that team winning first leg won the whole race.

i do not know all the figures, but I suspect that the prize money is not that huge a part of the show's expenses. They get 12 episodes out of the show and have huge production costs.

I agree that the $1M is a small part of the budget.

IMO, the show will want the team winning the first leg to make it to the end, as the chanec to have a team win $2M will get the show a lot of free advertising hype.

Would the other teams care is another team had a chance to double dip? This wouldn't take money out of their own pockets. The only thing I can see hurting the first team is just a reminder to the other teams that they can be a winning team. If another team wins ep 2 & 3, the latter would get a bigger target than the team who won ep 1.