Jackson Olson thinks criticism that he’s too experienced for Dancing With the Stars is bananas.
The second baseman for the Savannah Bananas—a baseball team known for performing comedic bits and dances between plays—pointed out that his position as an entertainer on the field is far from a waltz in the ballroom, despite what some DWTS fans believe.
Olson addressed the pushback with a comedic skit in which he acted out his side of a hypothetical conversation with his critics, setting the scene for the punchline by using iCarly song “The Joke Is On You” in the background.
“But you kinda have an unfair advantage,” Olson subtitled the July 23 Instagram video, speaking from the perspective of DWTS viewers. “Well you play for a dancing baseball team…you’re already a dancer.”
To prove his critics wrong, the 28-year-old then cut to a montage of his goofy Savannah Banana dance moves, emphasizing that his experience wouldn’t give him a leg up in the season 35 competition. He captioned the lighthearted clapback alongside a crying emoji, “Yeah so the first rehearsal will be interesting.”
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That said, Olson already has his eye on the Mirrorball Trophy. In fact, he recently reached out to season 34 winner Robert Irwin for advice.
“I’m like, ‘Mate, you’re an athlete, you got that mindset,’” Irwin recalled of their conversation in an E! News interview in May. “I was just like, ‘The most important thing is just let go and give yourself to the process.’”
The 22-year-old continued to assure Olson, “If you can do that, if you can completely lean in, it’ll change your life.”
Irwin—who danced to win alongside pro Witney Carson—also had advice for all of the upcoming contestants, including Maura Higgins and Ciara Miller.
“If you want to fully enjoy this experience and make it far, you’ve got to lean in,” Irwin noted. “You’ve got to trust the process and trust your pro.”
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However, Bobby Bones said he made more than this when he won season 27 with Sharna Burgess in 2018.
“That show pays OK,” the radio personality said on a Sept. 2025 episode of Jason Tartick’s podcast Trading Secrets. “Like, first episode, no money. Second episode, $10,000. I think it’s like, $10,000, $10,000, $20,000, $20,000. It ends up being $50,000 an episode if you last.”
Also receiving a base salary of around $110,000, Bones continued, “I ended up making close to $400,000 from that show.”
ABC has not publicly confirmed any of these figures.
But even if a pro is eliminated in the first round, they’re not leaving the ballroom empty-handed.
“You’re guaranteed until a certain amount of weeks,” Jenna Johnson said on a June 2025 episode of Kelly Stafford and Hank Winchester’s podcast The Morning After. “I think there’s different contracts though. I can’t speak for everybody.”
While Johnson—who won season 26 with Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon, as well as season 33 with The Bachelor’s Joey Graziadei—says the pros don’t get a larger paycheck if they take home what is now called the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy, she noted there’s still an incentive to make it to the finale (besides bragging rights, of course).
“If you make it all the way to the end, you’re getting paid the whole season, which is amazing, and you get a bonus on top of that for making it to the finale,” she explained on The Morning After. “If you win, it’s not like you win a $1 million and split it with your partner. You’re just getting a cute trophy together.”
On a 2022 episode of Trading Secrets, Lindsay Arnold recalled how her salary was cut “more than in half” when she was demoted from pro to troupe member.
“You get no say,” Lindsay said on a May 2025 episode of Maggie Sellers’ Hot Smart Rich podcast. “It’s very much just, ‘Here’s your partner. Make it work.'”
In fact, Jenna said the pairing is often a secret until the last minute.
“They really want to keep it a secret until you meet them live,” Jenna said on The Morning After. “They want that genuine reaction. So I think people always think we know who we have and we’re keeping it a secret. Absolutely not. They do not tell us. They really don’t even want us to know the cast. It gets leaked a lot, but they want it very hush-hush until you walk in and meet your partner.”
As for what the Dancing With the Stars team looks for when making these matches?
“It’s based on height, build and personality and compatibility,” former showrunner Rob Wade told E! News in 2015. “We don’t pair people who aren’t going to get on. It’s too intense. It’s not like The Bachelor or something, we couldn’t do that. That would just be miserable experience for the celebrity, for us and the viewer. You don’t want to see two people who don’t like each other and, quite frankly, we have made that mistake pairing people up who didn’t get on so well.”
