BattleBots is an American robot combat television series and company. BattleBots is a series of competitions in which competitors design and operate remote-controlled armed and armored machines designed to fight in an arena combat elimination tournament. As a show, BattleBots aired for five seasons on Comedy Central (2000–2002), returning with two seasons on ABC (2015–2016) and five more on Discovery Channel (2018–2023), in addition to several spin-offs.
BattleBots was inspired by untelevised American Robot Wars competitions (1994–1997), created by Marc Thorpe. Thorpe's competitions also inspired the British TV program Robot Wars (1998–2004, 2016–2018), which acquired the name's television rights in 1995. Starting in 1997, Marc Thorpe's ability to continue his Robot Wars competitions came under legal threat from his former sponsor. In response, competitors Greg Munson and Trey Roski put together a new company, BattleBots, as an unofficial continuation of the American competitions. The first official BattleBots event was hosted at the Long Beach Pyramid in Long Beach, California, in August 1999, while a second event in Las Vegas was used to pitch the competition to television networks.
For five seasons, BattleBots aired on the American Comedy Central and was hosted by Bil Dwyer, Sean Salisbury, and Tim Green. Comedy Central's first season premiered on August 23, 2000, and its fifth and last season ended on December 21, 2002. While small untelevised competitions continued to be run under the BattleBots name since 2002, the show was on hiatus until it was revived on ABC in 2015.
A six-episode revival series premiered on ABC on June 21, 2015, to generally favorable reviews and ratings. Additionally, ABC renewed BattleBots for a seventh season, which premiered on June 23, 2016. In February 2018, Discovery Channel and Science picked up the show for an eighth season, which premiered on May 11, 2018. A ninth season of BattleBots premiered on Discovery Channel on June 7, 2019, the tenth season premiered on December 3, 2020, the eleventh season on January 6, 2022, and the twelfth season on January 5, 2023.
Two spin-off competitions have debuted on Discovery+. The first spin-off, BattleBots: Bounty Hunters, premiered on January 4, 2021, on Discovery+. A second spin-off premiered on August 5, 2022, under the name BattleBots: Champions. BattleBots: Pro League, a 20-episode competition, began airing on YouTube in July 2026, with international distribution planned for 2027.
History
Early competitions BattleBots is an offshoot of the original Robot Wars tournaments, the brainchild of Marc Thorpe. Robot Wars had financial backing from Sm:)e communications, a New York record company. The Thorpe partnership broke up in 1997, starting many years of legal wrangling between Thorpe and Profile Records (the former Sm:)e Communications). Profile licensed Robot Wars to Mentorn, a UK television production company. Mentorn's Robot Wars ran from 1998 to 2004 as a popular television program in the UK, with a short-lived revival from 2016 to 2017.
The robot builders left behind in San Francisco formed BattleBots, Inc. and began a series of larger competitions. The first was held in Long Beach, California in August 1999 and streamed online, attracting 40,000 streams. Lenny Stucker, a television producer known for his work on telecasts of professional boxing, was in attendance and showed interest in being involved with BattleBots—believing the concept of robot combat was "hip" and have shown an interest in technology. Stucker made changes to the competition's format and presentation to make it more suitable for television, including elements reminiscent of boxing (such as a red and blue corner) and shifting to a single-elimination format. The creators tried selling the competition as a television series to networks such as CBS, NBC, HBO, and Showtime, but none picked it up. A second event was held as a pay-per-view in Las Vegas in 1999, the PPV was in turn, used as a pilot to pitch the show again, with a higher rate of success.
Comedy Central seasons (2000–2002) Among the networks interested was Comedy Central, who ultimately picked up the program. Debbie Liebling, the network's Senior Vice President of original programming and development, felt that the concept would appeal to the network's young adult demographic, explaining that "it was really funny and really nerdy. The Internet was not a big thing yet, so the nerd culture wasn't so celebrated. It was sports for the nerdy person, I guess." Co-creator Greg Munson viewed the deal as a double-edged sword; it gave BattleBots an outlet and a larger budget, but the network insisted on the addition of comedic aspects to BattleBots as a program, such as sketches involving contestants. However, the competition itself was not affected by this mandate; Liebling described the final product as being "a parody of a sports show without being a parody". Munson lamented that the network had also ignored his suggestion for the co-host role to be filled by "attractive geek girls" with sufficient knowledge to speak with builders, having elected to "[keep] throwing bigger and better hot babes at it", such as Carmen Electra.
Despite this, viewership and awareness of BattleBots grew progressively over time; contestants Christian Carlberg and Lisa Winter were invited to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, BattleBots beat South Park as Comedy Central's highest-rated program for a period during Season 3, competitor interest grew and licensing deals also emerged. The success of BattleBots, however, resulted in competition from other broadcasters; TLC introduced a competing program, Robotica, while other channels imported episodes of the British Robot Wars series. By 2002, the program had begun to face further difficulties; Munson felt that the bouts had become "homogenized" because the participants had "perfected" the sport of robot fighting, leading to a lack of innovation in robot designs and strategies. Furthermore, BattleBots had sued Anheuser-Busch and its advertising agency for producing and airing a commercial during Super Bowl XXXVII that parodied the program and featured a robot greatly resembling one from BattleBots (this lawsuit, however, was dismissed in 2004, after a judge ruled that the ad was a parody protected by fair use). In September 2002, Comedy Central cancelled BattleBots after its fifth season, BattleBots 5.0. Viacom acquired full control of the network in April 2003; Stucker believed that Comedy Central had become "tired" of the program, and Roski stated that Viacom had wanted to shift Comedy Central back towards traditional comedy programming.
ABC/Discovery Channel revival (2015–2023) In December 2014, ABC announced that it had picked up a six-episode revival of BattleBots, produced by Whalerock Industries, to premiere in June 2015. Roski and Munson served as executive producers, joined by Lloyd Braun. The 2015 revival drew an average viewership of 5.4 million in its Sunday-night timeslot, with a 1.9 share in the 18-49 demographic. In November 2015, ABC announced that it had renewed the BattleBots revival for the seventh overall season of the series. The 2016 competition expanded to a 56-team field.
After ABC declined to renew the revival for a subsequent season, the series was picked up by Discovery Channel and sister network Science. In April 2018, the networks announced that a new season would premiere that year: May 11 on Discovery and May 16 on Science Channel. The announcement reported that among the returning bots would be favorites Tombstone, Minotaur, Chomp, Witch Doctor, Bronco, Bombshell, Bite Force, and Yeti. Chris Rose and Kenny Florian return to call the action, provide background information about the bots and teams, and offer commentary. Jessica Chobot served again as the sideline reporter. Faruq Tauheed returned as the ring announcer.
BattleBots returned for another season on June 5, 2019, on Discovery and Science Channel. Chris Rose and Kenny Florian returned as hosts with a new sideline reporter, Jenny Taft, interviewing all of the BattleBots competitors in the workshop. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the tenth-season premiere on Discovery, planned for May 2020. Filming finally occurred October 10–21 for the season 10 premiere on December 3, 2020. An eleventh season ran from January 6 to April 7, 2022, establishing a permanent base for production at Caesars Entertainment Studios in Las Vegas. A twelfth season—marketed as "World Championship VII"—ran from January 5 to May 25, 2023.
Other untelevised competitions From 2002 to 2011, the Comedy Central-era arena was utilized for BattleBotsIQ (later rebranded to BotsIQ), a series of annual competitions for students using robots built at the 120lb (middleweight) weight class. 15lb robots were added to the tournament series starting in 2005. Several other small tournaments were held at trade shows and private company events during the 2000s. In 2024, BotsIQ was repurposed into BattleBots: Metal Mayhem, a competition between 15lb robots built by high schoolers. The event was sponsored by the US Army and held in Austin as part of the 2024 South by Southwest technology festival.
Between August 21 and 26, 2009, a major BattleBots-branded event was held and filmed in Vallejo, California. Three competitions were held: The High School Championship, Collegiate Championship and Pro Championship. Competitors included a mix of Comedy Central stars and newcomers who would return to the reboot. Though essentially an extension of BotsIQ, it notably saw the return of heavyweight machines and their professional creators. CBS Sports originally agreed to air the Collegiate Championship before dropping out due to lack of commercial interest. A deal with Fox was later signed before also falling apart for unknown reasons. The pilot episode of the Collegiate Championship was released onto the official BattleBots YouTube Channel on the 17th of September 2010.
The rebooted version of BattleBots has hosted several untelevised shows in Las Vegas, featuring the heavyweight machines from the televised series. In 2019 and 2022, minor tournaments were hosted in collaboration with re:MARS, a technology conference run by Amazon. The re:MARS competition on June 6, 2019 was won by Witch Doctor (out of ten competitors), while the competition on June 23, 2022 was won by HyperShock (out of eight competitors).
A live show, 'BattleBots: Destruct-A-Thon', is presented four days a week starting in February 2023, with a brief hiatus in August 2024. 'Destruct-A-Thon' exhibited unscripted fights between replicas of classic and reboot BattleBots heavyweight competitors. The replica bots, or 'ShowBots', were built and driven by a production crew with guidance from the original teams who designed the competitors. Starting May 2023, the production space was utilized for another live show, 'BattleBots Proving Ground', which involved fights between newly designed or untested bots from newcomers or unproven teams. 'Destruct-A-Thon' and 'Proving Ground' are hosted by Steve Judkins and Bil Dwyer, who previously hosted the Comedy Central era of the competition.
Personalities For the first five seasons, BattleBots was hosted by Bil Dwyer, Sean Salisbury, and Tim Green. Correspondents included former Baywatch actresses Donna D'Errico, Carmen Electra, and Traci Bingham, former Playboy Playmate Heidi Mark, comedian Arj Barker and identical twins Randy and Jason Sklar. Bill Nye was the show's "technical expert". The show's match announcer was longtime boxing ring announcer Mark Beiro.