“American Ninja Warrior” returning to Denver on NBC
As part of its ninth season, “American Ninja Warrior” will return to the Mile High City to shoot more episodes of its popular competitive-endurance spectacle.
Hosted by Denver-raised TV personality Matt Iseman, ex-NFL player Akbar Gbaja-Biamila and co-host Kristine Leahy, “Ninja Warrior” pits ordinary (if aggressively self-trained) people against each others’ best time on an increasingly challenging obstacle course, all for a shot at $1 million.
The show will begin its sixth season on NBC, which airs the original episodes first. American Ninja Warriors started on the Esquire Network (formerly Style Network), which now airs encore presentations. It has inspired homespun versions, including a viral video of a 5-yearold girl from Northglenn navigating an obstacle course built by her father.
For its 2017 season, the series has planned stops in Los Angeles (March 7-8); San Antonio (March 26-27); Daytona Beach, Fla. (April 7-8); Kansas City, Mo. (April 24-25); Cleveland (May 8-9); and Denver (May 23-24), with the finals taking place in Las Vegas (June 19-24).
The Denver episodes will once again be recorded at Civic Center park, where the show was last shot in May 2013.
Notably, the first true “winner” of the series was Isaac Caldiero, who was credited as being from Fort Collins, in 2015. Colorado has also typically been well-represented on the show thanks to our strong fitness, climbing and winter sports communities.
Based on the international hit “Sasuke,” from the Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, the original series is now in its 31st season in Japan, according to NBC Universal.