The Runner Up Takes It All

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
You've never even heard of the first place guy.

When the person who comes second or worse in a Reality Show gets more out of it than the winner, be it in post-show popularity, sales, endorsement cash, or simply not looking as much as a jackass on national television.

For the talent-based shows, the reason can be described thusly. When you win, you're hot, and the producers of the show want to capitalize on that. This leads to getting pushed too fast and too hard. With singers, for example, it might involve churning out a sub-par album to capitalize on their star power. Hype Backlash sets in, and people will tend to get a little sick of them. But for the contestants who finish lower in the ranks, they still have all the recognition—all of the same people watched the show, after all—but are allowed to relax, work at their own pace, and develop a high-quality body of work that people are more likely to enjoy. Also note that, almost by definition, many more people don't win than do. So even if any given winner is more likely to hit it big than any given runner-up, you still might see more runners-up who become stars than winners.

Compare Second Place Is for Winners, Award Snub.

Examples of The Runner Up Takes It All include:

Film

  • During the end of Cars, Lightning McQueen places third in the final race. However, this was because he stopped to help his idol finish his final race. The winner looks like an ass, everyone loves McQueen.

Professional Wrestling

  • WWE's Tough Enough reality show created a minor lower-midcard star for a couple of years in the form of Maven. Much more success was found by fourth season runner-up The Miz and third season co-winner John Morrison (a lone exception), who were later hired and ended up the top tag team in the company in early 2009.
    • Morrison did pretty well as a singles wrestler too, picking up various midcard titles including the (theoretically World Title-level) ECW strap, and groomed to be one of the top stars on WWE's Friday Night Smack Down.
    • More recently (2011), Miz has become the WWE Champion and has successfully defended the title at Wrestlemania, while Morrison's career subsequently stalled in lower midcard hell.
    • Chris Nowinski came in second against Maven in the first TE, but eventually earned a WWE contract of his own. While his wrestling career was cut short by a concussion, he drew on his experience to write Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis, and became a noted expert on the subject, continuing his fame and recognition long after Maven vanished from the public eye.
    • Other successful TE runners-up include ROH wrestler Kenny King and TNA star Matt Morgan.
    • Almost one year after the latest revival, winner Andy Leavine was fired whereas the very first person elimination, Ariane "Melina vs. Alicia Fox" Andrew, is on televsion weekly as Cameron, back-up dancer for Brodus Clay.
  • WWE NXT either Double Subverts or plays this trope straight.
    • Season 1: Daniel Bryan became World Heavyweight Champion while Wade Barrett hasn't had anything as big as his initial world title chase during the Nexus angle.
    • Season 2: Runner up Michael McGillicutty has become a Tag Team champion, while winner Kaval was more-or-less jobbed out up until his (requested) release.
    • Season 3: While winner Kaitlyn may have had more success than runner up Naomi, 2nd runner up AJ has had more wins under her belt, while Kaitlyn herself? Not so much...
    • Season 4: Johnny Curtis hasn't even appeared until recently (nor did he get his guaranteed tag title shot), while runner up Brodus Clay appeared on Smackdown as Alberto Del Rio's bodyguard, then took a dramatic Heel Face Turn as the Funkasaurus.
    • Season 5: While the contest was effectively abandoned, Titus O'Neil and Darren Young ended up getting promoted with Smack Down contracts, leaving Derrick Bateman as the lone rookie and technically, the unofficial winner. Fridge Brilliance also applies as the prize would have been for the winner to compete in Season 6, which looks to indeed be happening for Bateman.

Reality Shows

  • Gareth Gates from Pop Idol, at least to begin with. Not so much several years down the line when Will Young was still fairly successfully releasing material and Gareth was finishing fourth in Dancing On Ice.
  • Clay Aiken from American Idol. A lot of people actually forget that he was the runner-up.
    • Fantasia Barrino of Season Three hasn't done too terribly, as long as you don't compare her to Oscar-winning, Super-Bowl-anthem-singing Jennifer Hudson, who finished seventh.
    • Season Five champion Taylor Hicks has been outdone by two of his competitors: fourth-placer Chris Daughtry and sixth-placer Kellie Pickler. Even Katharine McPhee, who came second and whose musical career has yet to set the world alight, is better known than him.
      • Chris Daughtry might be the best example of this trope, as he currently sits behind winners Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood as the third-highest-selling Idol contestant. And again - fourth place, meaning that the collective American consciousness felt there were three better contestants than him.
    • And more recently, Adam Lambert, who despite finishing second to Kris Allen, has made quite a career for himself. Though Kris is still moderately successful, and a lot of Adam's "success" was mostly hype surrounding his coming out as gay.
    • David Cook and David Archuleta have had about equal success, but neither of them really became superstars.
    • Really the only actual winners who are still more popular than all others from their season are Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Jordin Sparks.
    • At least initially (the rules may have changed), the Top Two Idol finalists were locked into an onerous contract with 19 Management which basically signed over their souls. While those who finished lower got a lot of the same buzz but were not so encumbered and were free to manage their careers properly.
  • Every single runner up in Australian Idol goes on to have a better career than the actual winner. Every single one.
    • Well, that's definitely the case with the first two seasons, but is kinda debatable with the rest (especially with Damien Leith & Wes Carr).
    • Oh, come on, Guy Sebastian from Season 1 extremely popular, IN MALAYSIA! (he's born in Malaysia) The others? Not so much.
  • Colby Donaldson was the runner-up of Survivor: The Australian Outback came close. The winner won $1,000,000. Colby won $100,000 and two cars, but also went on to a modest acting career (including razor ads, which was sad because he was gorgeous with stubble.) He also was asked back for the All-Stars and Heroes vs Villains seasons and was a finalist for All-Stars' "favorite survivor" poll, which would have earned him a million.
    • As of Jun 2010, he is the host of Top Shot, a competitive reality show on the History channel that features marksmen and shooting challenges.
    • One of the best examples from the Survivor series is Elizabeth Filarski also from the Outback season. She came in fourth place but went on to host The Style Network's The Look for Less and is now co-hosting the Emmy-award winning talk showThe View as Elizabeth Hasselbeck. She has also recently written a book about Celiac Disease, The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide.
    • Rupert Boneham of Survivor: Pearl Islands, who, though only placing 8th in that season, then 4th in All-Stars, won the Favorite Survivor poll and the prize of a million dollars... in other words, the only person to win a million without even placing in the top three!
      • Compare: The first winner of Survivor: Richard Hatch who failed to pay taxes on his winnings and ended up in big trouble. (According to The Other Wiki, he served a 51 month sentence, which prevented him from competing in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains).
    • "Boston" Rob Mariano from Survivor: Marquesas came back for All-Stars, but didn't get the million dollars... he got the million-dollar winner, marrying Amber Brkich (in addition to his own second-place winnings). The two then took the opportunities their Super Couple status offered them, including two stints on The Amazing Race, and Rob would make more repeat appearances on Survivor ultimately winning the Redemption Island season.
    • Quite a few people have a hard time remembering that Russell Hantz was the runner-up in Survivor: Samoa due to how astronomically well-known he is(not necessarily well-liked, but well-known). It doesn't help that he played the Heroes Vs Villains season while under the impression that he did win (as it was filmed before Samoa aired, and therefore before Samoa's live finale - he knew he made it to the finals, but it never occurred to him that he might have lost).
  • Jade Goody of the UK version of Big Brother. In fact she only came fourth!
    • On the 2006 Celebrity Big Brother it was widely predicted that winner Chantelle Houghton (who in fact wasn't a celebrity at all, but an average 20-something planted by the producers) would enjoy her five minutes of fame and then disappear, while runner-up Michael Barrymore's career would recover from several years of scandal. Ultimately it was inverted, as Houghton did fairly well for herself afterwards, whereas Barrymore's career promptly died again, apparently for good.
  • Liberty X were the runners up on Popstars and did much better than the actual winners - Hear'say.
    • Although Hear'say's Myleene Klass went on to have a better solo career than either.
  • America's Next Top Model- Some blogs that sound surprised when they talk about past winners actually getting modelling work. Every contestant leaves the show with some extra experience of an industry they want to work in and a portfolio of pictures.
    • Elyse Sewell from Cycle 1, who has been very successful in Asia, is considered the most successful contestant to date, even though she came in 3rd.
    • That's mostly because the competition is heavily rigged. Tyra may decide from the beginning what kind of winner she wants and stage the competition accordingly. Picking mediocre photos on purpose, editing the film with a bias against certain contestants, eliminating girls who might pose a threat to the pre-selected winner, etc. It's pretty common knowledge that C10's Whitney won over far more modelesque Anya only because "It was about time they had a plus-sized girl win." In C12, Allison and Teyona were pretty toe to toe, but Teyona was picked to continue the pattern of a black winner every 3rd cycle.
      • There's also the fact that Tyra, despite her good intentions/narcissism, has a tendency to pick girls who will NEVER get work in the real modeling world for one superficial reason or another. Too "old" for being over 22, too "fat" for being over 115 pounds, too "short" for being under 5'7, etc. It wouldn't be surprising at all if none of the girls from Cycle 13 (where the gimmick was that all of them were under 5'7" tall) got work after the show wrapped for the season. Because of this and the reason above, agencies are hesitant or outright refuse to hire past contestants. One fashion expert mentioned that agencies just don't like being told who the "next big thing" is.
  • These days Search for a Star is only remembered because the runner-up was Wendy Padbury, who went on to play Zoë in Doctor Who.
  • Venezuelan TV fame-seeking reality Fama y Aplausos, provided us Hany Kauam and Mayré Martínez, two singers who were expelled before the finale. About two years later, and nearly at the same time, Kawam released a pop album who went Gold, and Mayré become one of the favorites contestants in Latin American Idol, causing several journalist to say "those judges from Fama y Aplausos must be kicking themselves now". Then Mayré went to prove this trope right by winning LAI, and having her career stalled since then.
  • Finnish Idols has this too. First year, runner up Antti Tuisku became the iconic Idols star, third season, though the winner got a decent amount of fame, the runner-up Anna Abreu is generally the bigger star. This is also predicted to happen with the 2008 season, with Pete Parkkonen who came in third.
  • Spain's Operación Triunfo, first edition. The winner was Rosa López, who went to Eurovision Song Contest and is still active in the industry. But runners ups Chenoa and David Bisbal are way more successful than her, and are the only ones known at the other side of the pond.
  • A similar situation happened in the first edition of its Mexican simile La Academia, where Yahir became the most successful singer despite ending up in fourth place.
  • Star Search has this reputation. The list of winners is no comparison to the list of those who didn't end up winning at the end of the season: Aaliyah, Christina Aguilera, Drew Carey, Dave Chappelle, Destiny's Child, Alanis Morrisette, Kevin James, Dennis Miller, Rosie O Donnell, LeAnn Rimes, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake...
    • This one, at least, is easy to understand. Star Search, for some completely inexplicable reason, uses a single elimination format, meaning that aside from skewed voting blocks and unpredictable judges, an unlucky seeding can knock out a strong contender early.
  • Speaking of the Eurovision Song Contest, Gali Atari & Milk and Honey won in 1979, but outside of Israel, where Hallelujah's still really well-known, very few people know who they are. One of the losers, however? Dschinghis Khan. Enough said, really.
    • It's not the only example from the Song Contest - Mocedades' "Eres Tu" from 1973 and Cliff Richards' "Congratulations" from 1968 both finished second, yet became far more massive hits than the winners.
    • Dancing Lasha Tumbai, the runner up song in 2007, outsold the winner Molitva. By more than the double.
  • The most recent[when?] seasons of The Bachelor had an interesting take on this trope. Jason selected Melissa Rycroft as the winner over Molly Malaney in the Finale. But during the "after show", he dumped winner Melissa in favor of Molly. Your Mileage May Vary though, as Melissa ended up on Dancing With the Stars, while Molly ended up with the "not as rich as he says he is, and willing to humiliate Melissa on national television, so how great can he be" Jason.
  • Saira Khan and especially Ruth Badger from the first two seasons of the British version of The Apprentice. The winners of the first two seasons, Tim Campbell and Michelle Dewberry are still doing pretty well for themselves, but the runners-up from those years are definitely higher-profile in the media.
    • Also James Max from the first season, who only made it as far as the interview week, but often pops up as a guest presenter on TV shows and has his own radio show with a pretty decent audience. For a while this also applied to Raef Bjayou from the fourth season, although he seems to have faded into obscurity more recently.
    • Another example from the fourth season; Ian Stringer bombed out in the third week, and Sir Alan Sugar branded him "an absolute waste of space" and the worst candidate from that year's bunch. These days however he's a fairly well known sports reporter, and enjoys a higher profile than the vast majority of that year's candidates.
  • You may not remember that, thanks to Hype Backlash, Susan Boyle actually came second in Britain's Got Talent 2009, what with more than 10 million copies of her debut album sold worldwide. (The actual winners? Dance troupe Diversity.)
    • Diversity have done pretty well for themselves, though... it's just that dance troupes don't really release albums or anything.
  • Ninet Tayeb won the first season of Israel's equivalent of American Idol. Her most significant career move since then was her role as an Expy of herself in "Hashir Shelanu" ("Our Song"), a Soap Opera about music school. Two-odd seasons of this later she finally got to releasing an album, then went on tour to thundering, embarassed silence whenever she tried to have the audience join in the singing, for lack of familiarity with the words. Meanwhile the runner-up Shiri Maimon released an album that went gold, performed a ballad in the Eurovision Song Contest ranking fourth and won the MTV Europe Awards for Best Israeli Act.
  • Heather Morris was eliminated just before the top 20 of So You Think You Can Dance. She went on to dance for Beyonce Knowles in the Single Ladies tour and currently plays the role of the famously brainless Brittany in Glee.
    • Likewise with Amber Riley. She was rejected on American Idol (in fact, she didn't even get to appear on TV) and now she has probably gotten more fame and exposure than some Idol winners thanks to her role of Mercedes.
  • In 1997 Japanese music producer Tsunku ran a competition to find a new rock vocalist; the winner was Heike Michiyo. He later decided to create an all-girl group made up of the five runners-up and challenged them to sell 50,000 copies of their first single with only five promotional events. They did in four, and Morning Musume went on to be incredibly successful.
  • Project Runway has had its fair share of runner-ups both breaking into the industry and generally being more well-known than the winners; the only winner, out of its eight-plus seasons, that has actually come through is Season 4's Christian Siriano (ironically, he's the youngest winner in the show's history). The most well-known players are probably Season 1's Austin Scarlett (fourth place) and Season 2's Santino Rice (third place); both have their own reality show currently airing on Lifetime, and have made a modest name for themselves.
  • Shear Genius, Season 1: Tabatha Coffey was eliminated mid-late in the show; she now has her own reality show and owns a very high-end salon.
  • The X Factor has played this trope straight. The runners up from the first series, the vocal group G4, were ultimately more successful than winner Steve Brookstein. In the 2009 series, runner up Olly Murs seems to have become more successful than winner Joe McElderry (whose singing career seems to have been kind of a non-starter after very publicly losing the Christmas number one single spot to Rage Against the Machine), as have memorable and visually distinctive duo Jedward, who appear to be getting into children's TV presenting and advertising. Some have suggested that the most recent winner, Matt Cardle, might be able to avert it (he's more or less a Trans-Atlantic Equivalent to Chris Daughtry; he was in a couple of indie bands before the show and has made it clear that he wants to write or co-write a lot of his own songs).
    • The X Factor is actually interesting because the trope is only really played straight when the winner is male. Only two women have won the contest, Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, both of whom have enjoyed very successful singing careers so far.
    • Shayne Ward has been the only male X Factor winner to more or less avert this trope so far, going on to enjoy a moderately successful career as a singer and musical theatre performer. The runner-up from that year, Andy Abraham also did quite well initially, but his career imploded spectacularly following his disastrous performance as the UK's Eurovision Song Contest contender in 2008.
    • Like a lot of other singing shows, the prize (a record deal with Simon Cowell's label) for coming first is more or less worthless, because almost everyone who gets into the finals will inevitably get the same deal if they get enough hype during the show, but without the massive pressure and expectations associated with coming first.
      • If anything, they stand a better chance. The actual contract you get when you win X Factor is somewhat notorious, so runners up actually have a shot at getting a better deal than the winner.
    • Matt Cardle's career is about equally as successful as Rebecca Ferguson's. While Cardle has had higher charting singles in the UK, Ferguson was the only one to have success in other countries. However, these two are nothing compared to the third-place finalists, One Direction. They are probably the most well-known act in the history of the show (yes, even more than Leona Lewis) and are nearly as popular as Justin Bieber.
    • On the American version, 3rd placer Chris Rene has to this point had those most success, due to his uber-catchy single "Young Homie"
  • You may have seen Dave Holmes as the co-host of the FX Network's "DVD on TV". He was also the runner-up in MTV's first "Wanna Be a VJ?" competition. The actual winner, Jesse Camp, pretty much disappeared shortly after his 15 minutes in the spotlight.
    • Holmes was offered a job as an interviewer after the competition. He worked there for four years, while Camp has a show only for one contractually-obligated year.
  • Seemingly a reoccurring pattern among VH-1's "Celebreality" dating shows as New York, runner up of Flavor of Love, would get her own dating show, where the runners up, "Real" and "Chance" would later get their own as well.
  • They gay-themed episodes of the MTV dating show Next reveal the problem with applying the standard reality/dating show formula to gays. At least once, the chosen contestant decided he'd rather date one of the other (losing) contestants instead of the designated bachelor. Ouch.
    • In a way it happens to straight girls as well; a few times they bond with each other and decide the guy isn't worth it
  • On the Irish "Pop Idol", Nadine Coyle made it to the final but was disqualified for lying about her age. However, while the winners of that competition, "Six" had one dubious hit, Nadine went on to win another programme and participate in the far more successful "Girls Aloud"
  • Averted for the most part by The Ultimate Fighter. Former TUF winners Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, and Matt Serra have all gone on to become UFC champions, while other winners like Diego Sanchez, Michael Bisping, and Nate Diaz have become legitimate contenders, at some point, in their weight classes. Not to say that non-winners haven't done well, considering the success that guys like Josh Koscheck and Kenny Florian have had. It's not that surprising given the show's format, where the contestants directly compete against each other, so it's all the more likely the stronger, more talented fighter would end up winning.
  • While Jackie Evancho came second on America's Got Talent, she is the one performing with the big singers and orchestras, and she is the one with bestselling albums, while the first-place contestant is not remembered. It became cemented a year later when Michael Grimm, the guy who beat Jackie, performed in the results show of the Top 10 episode while Jackie performed in the finale special.
    • It also may have been planned: AGT producers may have been leery of having an 8-year-old girl headlining a show in Las Vegas.
    • This pretty much happened to all the winners except for Terry Fator, who has his own Vegas show. Acts like Nuttin' But Stringz, Recylced Percussion, and Fighting Gravity have done better than the winners of their seasons.
    • And let us not forget Lindsey Stirling, who didn't even make it past the semifinals the year she competed -- but is probably a bigger star as of 2020 than anyone else who's competed on the show.
  • Rachel Tucker did not in fact win the Andrew Lloyd Webber talent search show 'I'd Do anything', however unlike the winner who has virtually disappeared, Rachel went from strength to strength playing Meat in We Will Rock You, and is now on stage as Elphaba in Wicked.
  • CMT's Can You Duet (which formed new musical duos) zig-zagged this trope. Season 1 winners Caitlin & Will broke up after only one single, while third-placers Joey + Rory released three albums for Vanguard Records and have a massive fanbase despite being a No-Hit Wonder (possibly because Rory Lee Feek is a prominent songwriter as well). Season 2 winners Steel Magnolia had a moderately successful debut album, although fifth-place O'Shea already had a following and some awards in their native Australia.
  • Nashville Star zig-zags this trope. While season 4 winner Chris Young has become a mid-level star after a false start, the only other winner to even see Top 40 more than once was Buddy Jewell (whose debut album produced two #3 hits and was certified gold before a Sophomore Slump from which he never recovered). In comparison, Miranda Lambert (third place in Season 1) has far outdone everyone else on the show commercially, even if it took until her third album to get a big hit.
  • For a while, Canadian Idol Season 5 winner Brian Melo had the best career of the singers that season, if only because his winner's single hit #11 on the Canadian Hot 100. Four years later, third-placer Carly Rae Jepsen releases the single "Call Me Maybe," which has so far topped over ten national charts, hit #2 in the United States, and become a full-fledged meme.
    • Three years earlier, Jacob Hoggard places third behind Kalan Porter and Theresa Sokyrka. Jacob's band, Hedley, has since gone on to chart more singles and albums than any other acts associated with Canadian Idol. They even cracked the US Modern Rock charts once.
  • In the case of Lindsey Stirling, it's a case of "Loser Takes It All". No one remembers the winner of the 2010 season of America's Got Talent, but Stirling, who was kicked off the show in an early round and told she wasn't good enough to perform her unique combination of dance and violin, is now an acclaimed star with several international tours, gold records and a massive following to her name.

Western Animation

  • In a way, Gwen from Total Drama Island (the runner up of the first season) because she is better liked by the fanbase.

Other Media

  • This trope is older than Reality TV. In 1986, Halle Berry was Miss Ohio in the Miss USA pageant, but came in second place for the main title. Obviously, she has since gone on to become an Oscar-winning actress.
  • On a similar note, the winner of the inaugural Elite Model Management Look of the Year contest in 1983 was a 15-year-old called Lisa Hollenbeck. Among the losers that year were Cindy Crawford and Stephanie Seymour, who've probably gotten over their disappointment by now.
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