Fans Pitch Rule Change for ‘Rock the Block’

Heavy/HGTV/YouTube "Rock the Block" season 5 cast

HGTV’s hit renovation competition show “Rock the Block” is in the middle of its 5th season, with four teams from past seasons — Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas (from “Bargain Block”), Lyndsay Lamb and Leslie Davis (from “Unsellable Houses”), Bryan and Sarah Baeumler (from “Renovation Island” and “Battle on the Beach”), and Page Turner and Mitch Glew (from “Fix My Flip”) — returning to the series for chance at redemption.

The new season, which is set in Treasure Island, Florida, has already seen multiple “Rock the Block” firsts. In the premiere episode, host Ty Pennington announced that the teams’ houses would be spread across two buildings, requiring teams to work in pairs on their exterior space designs.

Episode 2 saw another series first when judges Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt couldn’t decide which team executed their living room renovations the best. In the end, the judges decided to award two teams the win, meaning Keith and Evan tied with Sarah and Bryan, each team earning a $2,000 bonus for their budget in the remaining weeks of competition.

The “Rock the Block” tie led many fans to take to social media, sharing their opinions on how the tie should be broken, congratulating the two winning teams, and offering their own suggestions for rule changes.

Fans Want Power in Deciding ‘Rock the Block’ Winners

One fan took to Facebook on March 16 in a “Rock the Block” fan group to share their idea for a rule change. “I think they should let the audience choose the winner each week! What do you think? ❤️,” they wrote, with over 180 comments shared on their post in one day.

“That would be GREAT! They could set it up like they do on American Idol…..vote at the end of each show…..” one user commented in agreement.

“Was just thinking the same thing. Why wouldn’t they have regular people ( not designers) come through and vote on their favorite based on what they would buy? Designers all have their own thoughts and all obviously think differently and think their designs/ideas are the best so voting against other designers is kind of unfair. Reg people will be a bit more fair I think ,” another fan commented.

“I’d like the winners to be the house that sell either first o for the most. Appraisals are fine but cold hard cash speaks louder. I’ve loved pretty much everything the guys from bargain block have done,” a third user wrote.

This is not the first time fans sought out a change in format, as during season 4 many social media users were calling for the judges to evaluate the homes blindly, without knowing which team was responsible for which design to help eliminate bias.

Ty Pennington Has Thoughts of His Own

Given the size of HGTV’s talent pool, fans often find themselves disagreeing with “Rock the Block” judgments, but they aren’t the only ones. Ty Pennington spoke with Heavy in March 2024 about the series and admitted that he sometimes has differing opinions of his own.

“Of course! I mean, look, art is subjective. Everyone is going to have something that appeals to them and maybe not somebody else. So that’s why it is so interesting,” Pennington said. He went on to explain that while its nice for the show to judge fairly based off appraisal value, there’s more to it than that in his eyes.

“Value is one thing but also just the beauty of design is another. But making something beautiful doesn’t necessarily add value to it. But it does to someone like me because I care about the beauty probably more than the existential value,” he shared.

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