| Eco-Challenge | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Reality |
| Created by | Mark Burnett |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 9 |
| No. of episodes | 36 |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | USA Network |
| Original run | 1 April 1995 – 11 April 2002 |
Eco-Challenge: The Expedition Race is a multi-day expedition length adventure race in which teams of four compete. It aired from April 1995 to April 2002.
Eco-Challenge was created in 1992 by Mark Burnett. Inspired by an Los Angeles Times article about Gerald Fusil's Raid Gauloises adventure race in Costa Rica, Burnett formed a team and competed in two Raid Gauloises events. Although his teams did poorly, Burnett decided to create a similar race in North America. When the race went international, Burnett purchased the rights from Fusil and set out to make the Eco-Challenge the world's premier adventure race.
Each team comprised a mandatory mix of both men and women, racing non-stop, 24 hours a day, over a rugged 300-mile (500km) course, participating in such disciplines as trekking, whitewater canoeing, horseback riding, sea kayaking, scuba diving, mountaineering, camelback riding, and mountain biking. Teams originally consisted of five members, but the team size was reduced to four members early in the event's history.
The first Eco-Challenge was held on April 25, 1995 in the Utah desert and was held each year in a new locale until 2002. Burnett recently noted that he did not intend to hold another Eco-Challenge, but had considered selling the rights to it. In contrast, other expedition-length races, including Primal Quest and the infamous Patagonian Expedition Race continue to be held.
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Each Eco-Challenge was broadcast on cable television. The 1995 Utah race was shown as a 45-minute feature , produced by and broadcast on MTV.[1] The 1995 Maine/New England event was broadcast in segments as part of the X-Games broadcast on ESPN. Starting in 1996, Eco-Challenge was aired on the Discovery Channel and the production enjoyed a significantly expanded budget. The 1996 British Columbia production, broadcast on the Discovery Channel won an Emmy Award. In 2000, the USA Network agreed to a three-year contract to broadcast the Eco-Challenge. Later that year, the show was nominated for a Prime-Time Emmy Award. USA did not renew the show after the 2002 Fiji race.
Although long out of print, the 1996 through 2001 Eco-Challenge races were released on VHS. The Utah, Maine/New England, and Fiji episodes were never officially released in the United States. Copies of the races are occasionally available on auction websites.
In 2011, Burnett sold Expedition Impossible, a reality show with a similar concept to Eco-Challenge, to ABC as a summer series. The new show debuted on June 30 of that year.
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