The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons

Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons is the fifth season of the MTV reality game show, The Challenge (at the time known as Real World/Road Rules Challenge).

Battle of the Seasons premiered in early 2002 and took place in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In each episode, the cast competed in a challenge, and the top three Real World and top three Road Rules teams would become the "Inner Circle" and have the power to vote off teams. The "Inner Circle" was determined by a cumulative score that would be tallied on a leader board. The final six teams would compete for a final prize worth $300,000.

This is the first edition of Battle of the Seasons series, with the second Battle of the Seasons, following in 2012 with a completely different format.

This season was followed by Battle of the Sexes.

Format
Separated into teams of Real World and Road Rules, each cast member is paired off with a castmate from their original season and they gain points after each daily mission based on their performances. The pairs with the most points cumulative from each team form the "Inner Circle" and vote off another pair from their own team. The individual winning pair of each challenge also earn additional prizes. After five pairs from each team are voted off, the final three Real World teams and final three Road Rules teams compete against each other in a series of challenges before the final race, that earns the winning teams $300,000.