The last few months have been an emotional roller coaster for Top Gear fans. First, Jeremy Clarkson caused a fracas. Then he was fired from Top Gear. Naturally, James May and Richard Hammond refused to continue doing Top Gear without the smoking, swearing, drinking, totally inappropriate but hilariously funny Clarkson.
Yesterday it became official: The trio are creating a new show on Amazon that will be exclusive to the shipping giant and stream on its Prime service.
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For those not keeping track, many thought Amazon and Netflix were in a pissing contest to sign the three entertainers. Clearly Amazon won, but at what cost? According to The Daily Mirror, that bill checks in at $250 million for three, 12-episode seasons.
We know what you're thinking: Holy crap that's a lot of money. But wait, let's do some math—get the calculator, these are large numbers—an Amazon Prime membership (the only way to watch the upcoming show) costs $99 per year in the U.S. market. Top Gear reportedly had about 350 million viewers. You might call it a popular show. It's popular because of these entertaining gentlemen. Carry the nine... and that means if nearly all those viewers subscribe to Prime Amazon's about to make $34,650,000,000. That's a lot of zeros, friends.
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So you see, $250 million almost seems like a drop in the bucket for what Amazon might stand to gain from this new venture.
Oh, and for those looking for a reference point, Netflix supposedly paid $100 million for two, 13-episode seasons of House of Cards.
Unfortunately, the new show won't be available for your viewing pleasure for about a year. The good news is it'll be going into production soon.
In summary, sometimes it takes a lot of money to make an absurd amount of money. Amazon likely just made a very expensive, yet smart investment.
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