Reality Show Millionaires! (Not Quite)

From today's Reality Blurred comes an explanation of the small print on the big prize won on Treasure Hunters by the three students from the university up the street. It doesn't take a genius to see that the prize isn't quite the hefty windfall the show made it out to be. Still, congrats, kids! Spend it wisely. Here's the top of the story:

Geniuses win $3 million on Treasure Hunters

The Geniuses lived up to their name on the Treasure Hunters finale, taking home the treasure, although not by much. While the Geniuses were initially far ahead, the Southie Boys and Air Force caught up, and they were all inside a little set that looked like an ancient pyramid version of the Big Brother house, with cutouts in the stones for the cameras to shoot through.

None of the teams could figure out the final clue; on the Genius team, Sam fell asleep, but then Francis had a vision and figured out the cryptex: FSKEY, for Francis Scott Key. That eventually led them into a small chamber with a pile of gold.

It wasn’t until the last few seconds of the live finale that they learned its actual value: $3 million. It’s the largest single cash prize given on a reality show, although ultimately each team member gets $1 million, although that’s still better than The Amazing Race. There was, however, some fine print that the Geniuses will learn about later; we saw it in the closing credits that basically says they won’t get all of the treasure today:
“The $3,000,000 prize is payable in the form of a monthly annuity payment to each winning team member paid over 25 years totaling $1,000,000 or any winning team member may choose to receive a cash prize equivalent to the present cash value of his/her annuity.”