20 Richest "Game Show" Hosts of All Time.

[TimK2003]

More like "The 20 Richest People Who Happened To Host At Least One Game Show", but still is an interesting read that might provide some surprises as to who's net worth is more. More or less, the list does make sense.

http://www.viralbasset.com/entertainment/20-richest-game-show-hosts-time/1/

[BillCullen1]

They made it a slide show, but I was curious enough to go through the whole thing. I was surprised at a couple who were NOT on the list (Martindale and Monty Hall) and I figured Barker would be higher on the list. They spelled Meredith Vieira's name wrong (Viera) and three deceased people made the list.

[Matt Ottinger]

Please don't take these things seriously.  Beyond the ridiculous amount of guesswork that goes into the estimations, there's also the simple matter of sloppy research, silly omissions and vague definitions of who counts as a game show host.  Just doing some Googling off the top of my head (using "Person X net worth") here are some people whose estimated net worth would put them on the list above the $15 million they assign Woolery. (And since they included Johnny Carson, don't tell me any of these people don't count for some reason.)

Craig Ferguson
Michael Strahan
Alec Baldwin
Anthony Anderson
Alan Thicke
Wink Martindale
Jimmy Kimmel
Chuck Barris
Anderson Cooper
William Shatner (why not?)

This was in about five minutes, and I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface.  And with the exception of the recently departed Thicke, I didn't even bother with deceased personalities or those associated with another country. (Don Francisco?  $100 million.)  At least "favorites"  or even "greatest" is subjective.  This list is just full of fail.

[Kevin Prather]

Saving you guys from having to click through an annoying slideshow:

20. Chuck Woolery - $15 million
19. Tom Bergeron - $16 million
18. Ben Stein - $20 million
17. Bob Eubanks - $25 million
16. Meredith Viera [sic] - $40 million
15. Jeff Probst - $40 million
14. Pat Sajak - $45 million
13. Alex Trebek - $50 million
12. Anne Robinson - $62 million
11. Bob Barker - $70 million
10. Howie Mandel - $80 million
9. Regis Philbin - $90 million
8. Steve Harvey - $100 million
7. Jeff Foxworthy - $100 million
6. Bob Saget - $100 million
5. Drew Carey - $165 million
4. Dick Clarke [sic] - $200 million
3. Ryan Seacrest - $375 million
2. Johnny Carson - $300 million (Apparently $300m is more than $375m now.)
1. Merv Griffin - $1 billion

[TLEberle]

God bless you Kevin Prather. Pick up your hundred Escudos at any open window.

Not really surprised by any of those, especially those at the top--when you work in lieu of sleep you can pile up quite a lot of money. I like that Dick and Ryan are next to each other. I'm a bit surprised that Mr. Probst isn't a wee bit higher given his EP credit.

[BrandonFG]

The site being called "Viral Basset" tells me everything I need to know. Another half-hearted website trying to make money from hastily-written slideshows.

[Jimmy Owen]

No Donald "The Apprentice" Trump?

[PYLdude]

No Donald "The Apprentice" Trump?

We said game shows.

[Jimmy Owen]

No Donald "The Apprentice" Trump?

We said game shows.

Wikipedia calls it a game show, but I did put in a smiley face emoticon just in case.

What might be hard to quanitfy is which hosts made their money solely as game show hosts.  I mean, you don't think Jeff Probst made $40 million off of "Rock and Roll Jeopardy," do you?

[BrandonFG]

If that's the case, then several hosts on that list should be questioned. Piggybacking off of Tim's point, the list is more people who hosted a game show at one point and have a really high net worth.

[TLEberle]

Please don't take these things seriously.

I don't think (m)any of us were. What's interesting-ish to me is that the farther you get away from "game show host" territory, the farther up the list you go. Jimmy Kimmel didn't make a whole lot of money on the two game shows he did, but the first was the jumping off point to his career where he made a whole lot more.

[Kevin Prather]

Please don't take these things seriously.

I don't think (m)any of us were. What's interesting-ish to me is that the farther you get away from "game show host" territory, the farther up the list you go. Jimmy Kimmel didn't make a whole lot of money on the two game shows he did, but the first was the jumping off point to his career where he made a whole lot more.

With perhaps the only exception to that rule being Regis, who if estimates are correct, probably made a great chunk of his fortune from Millionaire.

[TLEberle]

At $250k a throw? Yeah probably, although being on Live! for that long has to be a chunk. It's a long way from the $200k that Chuck was pulling down on Wheel of Fortune, not that I'd turn it down.

[Matt Ottinger]

What's interesting-ish to me is that the farther you get away from "game show host" territory, the farther up the list you go. Jimmy Kimmel didn't make a whole lot of money on the two game shows he did, but the first was the jumping off point to his career where he made a whole lot more.

With perhaps the only exception to that rule being Regis, who if estimates are correct, probably made a great chunk of his fortune from Millionaire.

It's interesting to think that Kimmel, Carson and even to some degree Letterman used game shows to become famous and then talk shows to become rich, and Regis more or less took the alternate route.  I mean of course he was making a multi-million dollar living doing Live, but Millionaire really put him into a whole different level of rich.

[Kevin Prather]

I read that Regis was making $18m a year on Live when he quit. I'd be curious to know what he was making on Live in 1999. I imagine the advent of Millionaire probably allowed him to command a higher salary.