Here's a deep dive;
Do you remember how Survivor started? It was that Mark Burnett guy, right? OK, but how did he get the idea for Survivor? He took the idea to televise Adventure racing from the biggest of the events, the Raid Galois, and built on it to start the Eco Challenge. From there he just sort-of dumbed it down to include just the mental aspect without the physical torment. What is adventure racing? It's crazy - a week plus race with teams of 4 people, across insane terrain, ocean kayaking, MTB, Camels, wild horses, white water rafting. The race is continuous, winner takes all. Usually the team that sleeps the least while making the fewest mistakes takes it. It was taped then televised on Discovery Channel for a number of years. I searched, and, sure enough, it's on YouTube. I've already watched Patagonia and I'm in the middle of Morocco. There's a season from British Columbia and Australia that I found on there too. Just search "Eco Challenge" on YouTube.