'The Challenge: All-Stars' Season 2 Is Only Available on a Streaming Service

Most seasons of The Challenge originally aired on MTV. So when Season 2 of The Challenge: All-Stars dropped on Paramount Plus, fans did a double take. They wondered if the season wasn't "official" or up to par with other seasons of the long-running MTV competition reality show. So, why isn't The Challenge: All-Stars Season 2 on MTV?

Apparently, MTV has so much Challenge-related content that it had to turn to the Viacom-owned streaming platform Paramount Plus to pick up some of the slack. Viacom also owns MTV, so the network and the streaming platform fall under the same conglomerate.

But some Challenge fans are a little confused about why producers didn't just wait to air All-Stars Season 2 on MTV.

Even though The Challenge: All-Stars is just as important as other seasons, it's considered a "special" season. Spring Break Challenge and The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars were also labeled special seasons because they're a little different from the standard format.

The Challenge specials do feature top-performing players from the franchise and they include difficult competitions and a monetary prize.

But they often have fewer episodes than standard seasons. And they have themes that set them apart from other seasons. All-Stars in particular features players who are considered the best of the best from recent seasons and from years ago. Because The Challenge: All-Stars Season 2 isn't a *regular* season, it makes more sense to run it on Paramount Plus.

While All-Stars airs on the streaming service, The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies is on MTV. This could be another reason why All-Stars isn't on the network. Both shows run concurrently.

And Spies, Lies & Allies is actually the official Season 37 of The Challenge. Instead of producers struggling to find a way to fit both versions of The Challenge into one calendar year, it seems they turned to Paramount Plus.

The Challenge: All-Stars Season 2 features iconic players like Casey Cooper, Derrick Kosinski, and Darrell Taylor. But since it's a special season, the prize amount is smaller. The Challenge usually offers $1 million to the winner.

The All-Stars Season 2 prize is $500,000. Okay, it's still not a bad prize at the end of a grueling competition. But it's significantly less than what the winner of Spies, Lies & Allies walks away with.

If you watched the earlier seasons of Real World, Road Rules, or The Challenge, then you'll probably recognize most of the faces this season. Although they're called all-stars, many weren't invited back for more seasons of The Challenge until now.

Tyler Duckworth, who hadn't been on MTV in 10 years when they approached him about The Challenge, admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he was shocked.

"I was just as surprised as maybe you were when I got the phone call," he said. "I thought they had maybe lost my number. I was like, 'Wait, come again? Who is this?'"

Luckily, there were no hard feelings. And, because the other all-star players are in the same boat, they'll all be able to bond over their mutual returns to the franchise.

Watch The Challenge: All-Stars Season 2 on Paramount Plus.