Adam Patterson of Owensboro is in the cast of FOX’s 99 To Beat, and the local contestant is now in the running for a $1 million prize. The season starts tonight at 8:00 p.m. central, putting an Owensboro name on a national game show at the moment the audience is watching for the first time.
Patterson is one of 100 contestants, meaning he has to outlast 99 other players before he can even think about the money. That setup gives the show its title and its pressure: each competitor is trying to avoid becoming the one sent home as the field gets smaller.
He said the opportunity did not begin with a push from him. “Well, I didn’t pursue it, it pursued me,” Patterson said, explaining that producers reached out after being drawn in part to his outgoing personality and what he called his “loudmouth” persona. More than 50,000 people applied, he said, and the process moved from an interview to approval to a ticket to Ireland.
That is where the human part of the story sharpened. Patterson said his family was not eager for him to go because he would be gone for like a month, a hesitation that makes sense when the prize is seven figures but the absence is immediate and personal. He was selected anyway, which leaves his family with the same waiting game as everyone else watching tonight: whether the Owensboro contestant can turn a casting call into a run that lasts deep into the competition.
What happens next is simple enough to understand and hard enough to do. Patterson will take his shot on 99 To Beat as the season begins, and Owensboro will have a direct stake in the answer. His finish is still unknown, but his place in the field is not.
