Through two seasons ofTracker, rewardist Colter Shaw has seen himself snag some big payouts and smaller rewards alike, making it unclear how much he’s actually made in total.Tracker’s pilot episode opened with Colter quickly wrapping up a job that paid out $50,000, a very nice way to kick off the series and establish that serious money can be had in his line of work. Of course, the episode also established the flip side of the coin: what he does is incredibly difficult, few people are good at it, and there’s sometimes a reason the rewards are so high.
It’s also not as though Colter keeps all the money he makes, either. Of course, he has a team that takes a cut. InTrackerseason 1, his team consisted of his handlers, Teddi and Velma, and his hacker friend Bobby. InTrackerseason 2, Teddi had left, but Velma and Bobby were still there and, halfway through the season, Bobby’s equally gifted hacker cousin, Randy, joined the team. So Colter is splitting his take four ways, though likely not equally, and paying out a percentage to the IRS. Even so, when we break it all down, we see that it’s been a fairly lucrative career for him thus far.
Colter Made A Total Of $175,000 In Tracker Season 1 (At Least)
Though Half His Jobs This Season Were For Unknown Rewards, Pro Bono, Or Not Paid Out
Trackerseason 1 saw Colter net at least $175,000, which is not a bad payday, all things considered. Even so, he would have made far more had events beyond his control transpired. Colter should have netted his biggest get ever inTrackerseason 1, episode 6, “Lexington,” even after splitting it with Billie Matalon. They were offered a staggering $250,000 to track down a missing thoroughbred racehorse; split two ways, that would have been $175,000 apiece or, in other words, his entire total for the season. Unfortunately, as it was connected to a major crime, federal agents froze the client’s assets, so Colter and Billie made nothing.
$50,000 + $20,000
$35,000
$20,000($5,000)
$20,000
$250,000
Pro bono
$10,000
$30,000
Episode 10, “Into the Wild”
Episode 11, “Beyond the Campus Walls”
Episode 12, “Off the Books”
Pro bono/Unknown
Episode 13, “The Storm”
$5,000
Episode 3 also saw Colter take a hit when he was supposed to take a case offering a $20,000 reward, but stumbled upon a woman looking for her sister who could only offer him $5k instead. There were at least three episodes where he was paid, but the amount he was given was never explicitly stated, and a fourth episode where his brother, Russell, gave him a wad of cash that Colter will almost certainly not spend. There was also one more episode, “Chicago,” where Colter workedpro bono, doing a favor for Bobby. As season 1 was only a half-series order of 13 episodes to start, that means almost half the jobs were donepro bono, for an unknown amount, or never paid out.
Colter Made A Total Of $330,187 In Tracker Season 2 (At Least)
His Rewards Spanned A Broader Range This Season
InTrackerseason 2, Colter’s total rewards jumped considerably, not necessarily because he made more money per job, but simply because there were 20 episodes to season 1’s 13, giving him seven more chances to make money on-screen. Colter nabbed some big paydays in three of the episodes, where he was offered a whopping $50,000 that he took home himself, and a fourth episode with the same reward offer that he once again split with Billie.
Episode 1, “Out of the Past”
$50,000 (split)
$50,000
$25,000
$187
$15,000
Episode 11, “Shades of Gray”
Episode 19, “Rules of the Game”
Episode 20, “Echo Ridge”
In the episodes where we know the reward he was offered, only two of them were under five figures - season 2, episode 5, where the brother of an impoverished pair of siblings offered $5,000 to find his sister, and in episode 7, where a little boy offered $187, everything in his piggy bank, to find his dog. He also likely didn’t earn much in episode 15 as he was deputized and paid by the local police department, and his work in a few other episodes was pro bono.
However, that was balanced out by the unconfirmed but substantial reward he got in episode 19, “Rules of the Game,” when he did a job forReenie’s extremely rich client, the ruthless businessman Leo Sharf. Sharf has deep pockets and implied that he’d pay Colter any sum of money to find his kidnapped assistant, and both Colter and Reenie would make sure that Leo kept that promise, so that was surely a big payday for the rewardist.
Colter Has Made At Least $505,187 In Tracker In Total So Far
And We Can Assume That The Number Is Actually Much Higher
While Colter has certainly had some downtime in the first two seasons ofTracker, most of his jobs haven’t taken very long to complete - no more than a few days to a week in most cases. While we tend to think of each season as a year, that’s not necessarily the case; ostensibly, it’s plausible that both seasons might have occurred within the span of a year, in-universe time. Considering certain context clues, that seems to be about right. In that case, making almost half a million in a year’s time, give or take a few months, is a really nice chunk of change.
Even if Colter splits those earnings up among his team, he almost certainly takes the largest percentage. We also have to consider the fact that he solved other cases off-screen, as the opening minutes of theTrackerpilot episode proved. Even though he pays taxes, Colter’s nomadic, minimalist lifestyle means he doesn’t have many bills, so he should be able to sock away quite a bit of cash each year. To that end, it will be a lot of fun to see how much he’ll make inTrackerseason 3, and if he’ll ever again net another reward as big as the one that got away in season 1.
Tracker
Cast
Tracker follows lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw as he navigates the country as a reward seeker. Utilizing his expert tracking skills, he aids private citizens and law enforcement in solving various mysteries while grappling with issues from his fractured family.
