Shaquille O'Neal's Dunkman Live Final Airs Tonight With $500,000 Prize and a Season 2 Already Taking Shape
Shaquille O'Neal's live televised dunk competition Dunkman holds its final tonight, August 25, on TNT and HBO Max — capping a tournament that drew over 854 million social views across platforms during its group stages alone. The winner takes home $500,000, the largest prize in the history of competitive dunking, with $125,000 for second place. Variety
Twenty-four of the world's best dunkers entered the competition, which Authentic Studios and TNT Sports present as the world's first professional dunk league. The commentator booth for the final includes Vince Carter, Draymond Green, Dwight Howard and TNT's Adam Lefkoe.
The road to tonight's broadcast stretches back to December 2025, when a six-episode Dunkman limited series debuted on TNT, with O'Neal serving as commissioner and judge alongside a rotating panel of former dunk contest champions including Carter. That early version featured 40 amateur dunkers competing for a $200,000 grand prize. Sports Video Group By April 2026, Warner Bros. Discovery and O'Neal formally launched the expanded professional league, and the full competition began airing July 28. Variety
Season 2 is already in motion. O'Neal plans to scout the world for new talent and is in talks with international partners including Poland and China. The next season may also add undercard events — a 15-and-under junior dunk contest using 9-foot rims, and a women's dunking division. Colin Smeeton, O'Neal's longtime manager and business partner who serves as president of Authentic Studios, said athletes from all over the world have contacted O'Neal and the league about joining.
O'Neal, 54, has built this venture with the same instinct that made him millions off a doorbell camera. In 2016 he bought a Ring Doorbell Camera at Best Buy; in January 2017 he approached Ring founder Jamie Siminoff at CES about partnering and gaining equity. He secured a sizable stake, which paid off when Amazon acquired Ring for $1.15 billion. A four-time NBA champion with two master's degrees, a doctorate, and stints as a sheriff's deputy and honorary U.S. Marshal, O'Neal has rarely let a single career define him.
He has cited the 2016 Zach LaVine versus Aaron Gordon NBA Slam Dunk Contest as the last great dunk contest. Dunkman is his answer — a standalone competition giving elite dunkers a platform and a purse that dwarfs anything the format has offered before. Variety
For fans, tonight is the payoff: 24 dunkers narrowed to finalists, a half-million dollars on the line, and a broadcast across both cable and streaming. For O'Neal and his partners at Authentic Studios and TNT Sports, it is also proof of concept — a Season 2 already expanding internationally before the first champion is crowned.
