‘The Bachelor: Summer Games’ Scrapped by ABC Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

ABC canceled The Bachelor: Summer Games Monday due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Bachelor spin-off was slated to air this summer, while NBC aired the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. Since the real Olympics have been postponed, ABC decided to do the same for the dating series.

A source told The Hollywood Reporter Monday The Bachelor: Summer Games would not air this summer. The show was never officially announced, but ABC and Warner Bros. was planning it, following the success of 2018’s The Bachelor Winter Games, which aired during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. It is not clear if Summer Games would still move forward in 2021.

Summer Games would have followed the same structure as the four-episode Winter Games did, with cast members from international editions of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette competing. There are more than 30 editions of The Bachelor around the world and more than 13 international versions of The Bachelorette to pull contestants from.

The Bachelor wrapped up its 24th season earlier this month, with Peter Weber getting engaged to Hannah Ann Sluss before breaking up. He then dated the runner-up Madison Prewett, despite his mother’s disapproval. However, hours after the finale aired, the two broke up.

The next iteration of the franchise, The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart, was already filmed and begins airing on April 13. The new season of The Bachelorette with Clate Crawley was expected to debut in May, but production has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It is still not clear if a season of Bachelor in Paradise, which is filmed in Mexico, is possible for this summer. Casting on a Bachelor spin-off for contestants 65 or older also began recently. ABC reality chief Rob Mills told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month that they were keeping an eye on the pandemic before deciding on the future of the other spin-offs.

“Obviously, it’s all being talked about because you have to see how this impacts everything,” Mills said on March 11. “But it’s still too far to make decisions on anything. We had to wrap up Bachelor, we’re in post on The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart, and then we start up Bachelorette this week. So it’s sort of crazy. It’s looking just towards tomorrow. The summer stuff is a little farther out and in early days really.”

Photo credit: ABC