For decades, Monaco’s superyacht industry has existed in a strange space between public fascination and private discretion. The yachts are impossible to miss: enormous vessels filling Port Hercule, sleek silhouettes anchored along the Côte d’Azur, and multimillion-euro floating palaces appearing each summer during the Mediterranean season. Yet the people who actually make the business work—the brokers, consultants, salespeople and industry professionals—have largely remained behind closed doors.
That is about to change.
Disney+ is bringing viewers inside this rarefied world with “Yacht Deals Monaco,” a new reality series that follows aspiring yacht professionals as they compete for an opportunity to enter one of the world’s most exclusive industries. The series is scheduled to premiere on Disney+ on 30 September 2026, with seven episodes released.
The premise is simple enough: eight ambitious candidates are brought into the world of superyacht brokerage and put through a series of professional challenges, sales tasks and presentations. But beneath that familiar reality-TV formula is something rather more interesting—the attempt to reveal what actually happens behind the glamour of Monaco’s superyacht business.
Beyond the Yachts and Champagne
The international image of Monaco’s yacht industry is built around extraordinary wealth. Visitors see the yachts, the tenders, the luxury cars, the private jets and the people moving between them. What they rarely see is the commercial machinery underneath it all.
Buying or selling a superyacht is not simply a matter of choosing a beautiful boat.
It can involve enormous financial transactions, complicated negotiations, technical knowledge, international clients, shipyards, lawyers, captains, crew, insurers and an extraordinary amount of relationship management. A broker is effectively operating at the intersection of sales, finance, luxury hospitality and high-level personal networking.
That makes the premise of “Yacht Deals Monaco” potentially more revealing than the usual reality show about wealthy people.
The series promises to concentrate on the people attempting to make a career in the industry rather than simply showcasing the finished product. According to the production description, the candidates must demonstrate whether they have the personality, resilience and commercial instincts necessary to deal with demanding clients and multimillion-euro transactions.
And that is where the reality-TV formula becomes particularly appropriate.
Because selling a superyacht is, in many respects, already a performance.
Eight Candidates, One Opportunity
The show places eight candidates into competition with one another as they attempt to prove that they can survive in the yacht-brokerage business.
They are deliberately presented as very different personalities: ambitious perfectionists, confident strategists, strong sales personalities and charismatic competitors. Their individual approaches become part of the entertainment, but the underlying question is more serious: who can actually turn personality and ambition into a viable career?
That distinction matters.
The superyacht business can look effortless from the outside. A broker may appear to spend the day walking around Monaco’s harbour, attending glamorous events and stepping aboard spectacular vessels. The reality is considerably less glamorous. Deals can take months or years, clients can be exceptionally demanding, and the financial stakes can be enormous.
The candidates therefore aren’t simply competing to be the most entertaining person on camera. They are being asked to demonstrate whether they can operate inside an industry where trust, discretion, knowledge and sales ability can be worth millions.
Two Insiders Become the Gatekeepers
The candidates are placed under the watch of two experienced figures from the yacht industry: yacht broker Cornelius Kistler and yacht consultant Marcela de Kern Royer.
De Kern Royer has subsequently spoken publicly about her involvement in the production, describing the series as an opportunity to open the doors to an industry that is often viewed primarily through the extraordinary yachts themselves.
Her involvement also adds another dimension to the series.
The yachting industry has historically been perceived as overwhelmingly male, particularly in senior commercial positions. De Kern Royer has highlighted the importance of women building careers and businesses within the sector and hopes the series can demonstrate that there is a place for a new generation of professionals.
That could ultimately prove to be one of the more interesting aspects of the programme.
Because behind all the imagery of wealth and exclusivity is an industry that requires people. The future of yachting depends not only upon wealthy owners buying increasingly sophisticated vessels, but also upon a new generation of professionals capable of serving that market.
Of course, there is another star in the series: Monaco itself.
The Principality is almost perfectly designed for this kind of television. Port Hercule provides the yachts. Monte-Carlo provides the glamour. The surrounding Riviera provides spectacular scenery. And the concentration of wealthy international visitors creates the visual shorthand required for a programme about the superyacht world.
But Monaco is not merely decorative.
The Principality is one of the world’s major meeting points for the superyacht industry. The annual Monaco Yacht Show, for example, brings together yacht builders, brokers, designers, suppliers, owners and industry professionals from around the world.
The market itself is substantial. The Monaco Yacht Show’s 2025 market report recorded more than €3 billion in estimated yacht sales during the first seven months of that year, while noting that the figure was complicated by numerous off-market transactions.
That gives some context to the world into which Disney+ is sending its cameras.
This isn’t merely a television fantasy constructed around people pretending to sell luxury boats.
There is serious money behind the industry.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for audiences to watch “Yacht Deals Monaco” has little to do with yachts at all.
Reality television has increasingly become fascinated with professions and lifestyles that ordinary viewers rarely encounter. Real estate agents, luxury brokers, private aviation professionals and high-end hospitality workers have all become entertainment subjects because they offer access to worlds that most people will never experience personally.
Superyachting takes that formula to another level.
A €50 million yacht is not simply a very expensive version of an ordinary boat. It represents an entirely different economic ecosystem.
The people buying these vessels can operate in a financial universe where the price of the yacht is only one part of the equation. Crew, maintenance, fuel, berthing, insurance, refits and management can generate enormous ongoing costs.
The broker therefore isn’t simply selling an object.
They are selling access to an entire lifestyle.
Then There is the Reality-TV Question
There is inevitably a tension between revealing the yacht business and turning it into entertainment.
The real industry depends heavily upon confidentiality and discretion. Many clients who possess extraordinary wealth have little interest in becoming television personalities. Deals can be conducted privately, relationships are closely guarded and the identities of clients may be considerably more valuable than the yachts themselves.
Reality television, meanwhile, thrives on personality, conflict, competition and drama.
That creates an intriguing contradiction.
How much of the actual yacht business can be shown when the people at the centre of the most valuable transactions may be precisely the people who don’t want to be filmed?
“Yacht Deals Monaco” appears to navigate that problem by concentrating on the aspiring professionals rather than turning wealthy yacht owners into the principal characters.
In other words, the programme can expose the machinery of the industry without necessarily exposing the private lives of the ultra-wealthy people who ultimately finance it.
For Monaco, the series could also have an unexpected effect.
The Principality has long been marketed through images of luxury. But luxury is an economy, not simply an aesthetic.
Behind every yacht are brokers. Behind every broker are shipyards, captains, designers, engineers, lawyers, accountants, crew agencies, management companies, insurers, marina operators, restaurants, hotels and countless other businesses.
The superyacht industry therefore contributes to a much larger ecosystem across Monaco and the French Riviera.
By focusing on the professionals attempting to enter that world, Disney+ may inadvertently show audiences something that traditional luxury advertising rarely does: the people who make the luxury economy function.
That may ultimately be more fascinating than another television programme showing champagne being poured on a yacht deck.
Welcome to Monaco’s Ultimate Sales Competition
“Yacht Deals Monaco” arrives at an interesting moment for the superyacht industry. The market continues to attract extraordinary wealth, while the business itself becomes increasingly sophisticated and competitive. At the same time, audiences have developed an enormous appetite for peeking behind the curtain of exclusive industries.
Disney+ is betting that viewers will want to see what happens when ambition collides with money, status, competition and one of the world’s most demanding luxury markets.
Eight candidates will enter.
Only some will have what it takes.
And somewhere between the polished decks of Monaco’s superyachts, high-pressure sales pitches and the relentless pursuit of the next deal, viewers may discover that the real luxury business is considerably less glamorous—and considerably more complicated—than the Instagram version suggests.
“Yacht Deals Monaco” premieres on Disney+ on 30 September 2026, bringing the competitive world of superyacht brokerage in Monaco to a global streaming audience.




