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James May & Richard Hammond Were Offered £4.6M to Continue Hosting Top Gear. Really?

Plenty British tabloids recently published a story regarding the future of Top Gear. Boiled down to its core idea, the report informs that Richard Hammond and James May were offered a whopping £4.6 million by the BBC to host Top Gear for two to three more seasons (reports vary). But did that actually happen?
Clarkson, Hammond and May 1 photo
Photo: BBC; image edited by autoevolution
From our point of view, we're in the middle of a "would've been, could've been" situation. Without any proper evidence to back up the reports from The Times, The Mirror and so forth, there's a 50:50 chance it happened. Let us believe for a moment it did happen. What would those pounds sterling translate to in per capita earning? A truckload of dough.

Splashing £4.6 million to retain the services of Hammond and May, while Jeremy's role would've been taken by a guest host each episode, equates to £760,000 and £1.15 million a pop per season. That's a maximum of $1.76 or €1.56 million (at current exchange rates) for Hammond each season and the same amount for Captain Slow. To put the appeal of this offer into perspective, both presenters were earning about £500,000 ($768,400 and €681,965) per season when Clarkson was the central figure on BBC Top Gear.

Anyone in their right mind would have accepted the offer in a heartbeat, but there's a catch – it's hard to imagine the Hamster and Slow shun Clarkson and their upcoming adventures in favor of the big pounds sterling. Our two cents go on a firm "hell no, that won't happen, not in a million years."

This editor is well aware that May and Hammond are still employees of the British Broadcasting Corporation, but they're under no obligation to continue Top Gear without Clarkson, as their contracts for the show expired right after the fracas incident with the producer came to a woeful full stop.

If anything, the fracas scandal made the former Top Gear hosts even more popular than they already were. While the Clarkson, Hammond and May Live tour is performed with sold-out arenas and broadcasting companies like Netflix and ITV want the trio harder than a friends-with-benefits relationship, it's natural to presume that the two presenters won't abandon their friend. It's all for one and one for all and, at the present moment, Top Gear UK is a one Stig show from most of the worldwide public's point of view.

Case closed.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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