‘Bachelor’ by the Numbers: Surprising Stats About the Dating Competition

Dan Clarendon January 16, 2022

'The Bachelor,' Season 26, Teddi, Clayton Echard — ABC/John Fleenor

ABC/John Fleenor

As Clayton Echard looks for everlasting love in Season 26 of The Bachelor, the online security and privacy company ExpressVPN has been doing a deep dive on the last 12 seasons, uncovering fascinating factoids about ABC’s long-running dating competition.

For example, did you know that the average Bachelor relationship never hits the 4-month mark after the show ends? Or that the average Bachelor star is half a decade older than the average contestant? Here are the findings.

The representation of people of color on The Bachelor has gone from 0 percent to 63 percent.

Diversity issues have become a PR nightmare for The Bachelor franchise, and understandably so. As this graph shows, only 20 percent of people on The Bachelor since 2010 have been people of color, on average. In fact, Season 15 had exactly zero people of color. But producers have vowed to do better, and 63 percent of people were POC in Season 25, more than twice the representation seen in the season prior.

ExpressVPN

Composite images of the Bachelors and their winners show how white the franchise has been.

ExpressVPN

Speaking of the #BachelorSoWhite controversy, check out these composite images of the Bachelors and the winners from the past 12 seasons.

The Bachelors are about five years older than their contestants, on average.

That age gap is not at the “robbing the cradle” level, luckily, but it still raises questions about ageism — as in, where are all the women closer to the Bachelor’s age?

ExpressVPN

The Bachelor is most popular in Minnesota and Utah.

Bachelor producers better not talk smack about flyover states, considering Minnesotan and Utahns search Google for the show more per capita than residents of other U.S. states. (Meanwhile, Nevadans, New Mexicans, and Alaskans couldn’t care less about the show, it seems.)

ExpressVPN

Teachers and realtors are the most common professions among Bachelor contestants.

Other common professions are nurses, models, and students. Ranking at the bottom of the list, undoubtedly, are Jumbotron operator (Season 17’s Paige Vigil), “manscaper” (Season 15’s Raichel Goodyear),
“chicken enthusiast” (Season 20’s Tiara Soleim), and “queen” (Season 25’s Victoria Larson).

People have talked about “the right reasons” 65 times by now.

“Hey, my person, can I steal you? I’m head over heels, and I’m falling for you, but only if you’re here for the right reasons.” Yes, those are all Bachelor clichés by this point, uttered dozens of times on the show over the last 12 years. (See also: The Bachelorette Season 17 contestant rap video “For the Right Reasons.”)