Average Rob coughed up 30,000 euros (!) to shoot a mini documentary about the Iron Man adventure: “A loss-making project”

Robert Van Impe (33), alias Average Rob, delivered a fantastic performance together with his brother Arno last summer by reeling off a complete Iron Man in Klagenfurt, Austria. In addition to millions of views and tons of respect from his many fans, the whole adventure cost him a lot of money. The YouTuber coughed up no less than 30,000 euros to realize his video project. “A loss-making project,” says Rob in the ’10 most Googled questions’, a podcast from radio station Qmusic.

It should come as no surprise that at least one of the ten most frequently asked questions concerns his spectacular performance in Iron Man. Let’s recap: this involves a combination of 3.8 km swimming, followed by 180 km cycling and finally another 42 km running, so a full marathon. Qmusic presenter Maarten Vancoillie wonders how many views the YouTube video about his sporting challenge generated. “The video showing the final has 2.1 million views. The other videos have about 900,000 to 1 million views,” says Rob. That’s impressive, to say the least.

To what does the mini-documentary owe its success? “I think people were particularly attracted to the series because they could compare themselves to us. People with an average fitness level could compare themselves to me,” he explains. “And you also had the group of people who could compare themselves with Arno, someone who they said on paper would never be able to do it.”

Loss-making project

But that success does not just come out of the blue. The video maker paid a lot of money to be able to shoot the series. “Whatever it costs, I wanted the series to be really good. I had no sponsors and ultimately paid 30,000 myself to be able to realize everything,” he admits. “So it was indeed a loss-making project. But suppose I had bought a Tesla and that total loss If I had driven, I would have paid the same amount and I wouldn’t even have those memories,” says Average Rob.