Below Deck’s Staggering Production Costs and Yacht Owners’ Reactions Revealed, Plus Massive Rental Payouts

Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo
One Below Deck yacht owner reveals how much he was paid for the use of his boat and others react to the partying that takes place on board as the jaw-dropping amount of money it takes to film the show is revealed.

Many networks prefer reality television because the genre is fairly cheap to produce when compared to scripted television. However, the same cannot be said about Below Deck as it typically costs upwards of $10 million per season to produce.

In 2019, Below Deck Mediterranean alum Hannah Ferrier dished on what it costs to film the Bravo series.

“All I’ve got is the gossip, and numbers have been swirled between $10 to $12 million,” she told the Daily Mail. “It’s a very expensive show to film.”

Of course, renting a yacht for a six-week season is extremely expensive since the average cost of a weekly yacht rental is about $200,000. Bobby Genovese — who owns the boat known as Valor featured on seasons four, five, and seven of Below Deck — recently revealed how much he was paid for the use of his boat while explaining why he agreed to the deal.

“I don’t use the boat those six weeks. They paid me a million dollars, they fixed the damage that [they caused], my crew got the opportunity to have time off, and it made sense for me,” Bobby told Docwalk in April.

It should be noted that his boat’s real name is BG. Since he didn’t want his vessel to be associated with the show, the stage name Valor was chosen.

Meanwhile, Jim Glidewell — who owns the yacht Ohana featured on season two of the show — said he did not wish to use a stage name for his vessel as he dished on the great experience he had working with Bravo.

“Bravo has this down to a science. It doesn’t go rough at all. It’s very well done,” he explained. “Captain Lee [Rosbach] handled it great, but I had a first mate and an engineer on board for backup [who were not shown on television].”

Jim went on to say that his boat’s typical guests are nothing like the charter guests on the show because they’re not “adult spring breakers.” Kim Vibe-Petersen, who owns Parsifal III on Below Deck Sailing Yacht, seemingly agrees with Jim about the guests, but he also believes the crew members are a bit over-the-top as well.

“It’s not totally like it is in reality,” Kim revealed. “The crew is jumping around in our Jacuzzi and all over the boat. That part of it is maybe a little overdone.”

As for the Valor’s owner, he refuses to watch the show because he’d rather not know what’s happening on his vessel. Furthermore, if someone attempts to tell Bobby about something that went down on his boat, he shuts the conversation down immediately.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht season two airs Monday nights on Bravo at 9/8c, and Below Deck Mediterranean season six is expected to return sometime this summer.