‘Jeopardy!’ Bosses Reveal New Plans for Tournament of Champions – Fans React
Jeopardy! bosses have taken on board the criticism of “too many tournaments” that sparked a backlash from some viewers in Season 40. And they have announced that Season 41’s postseason will include fewer and shorter tournaments.
Show producers Michael Davies and Sarah Whitcomb Foss revealed the news on the latest edition of the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, where they confirmed a “much shorter post-season” of “just 10 to 11 weeks.”
This will include two weeks of Second Chance, which will feed into a two-week Champions Wildcard tournament. Foss also announced that the qualification period for the next Tournament of Champions will be 28 weeks of regular programming, with the October 2 tape day being the cut-off.
The Wildcard tournament will include the two Second Chance winners along with 13 other non-qualifiers for the TOC. The winner of the Wildcard will earn the final spot in the next TOC. It wasn’t confirmed how the 13 non-Second Chance players will qualify for the Wildcard.
“I’m glad to see Champions Wildcard and Second Chance cut down a lot. It was always going to happen after the writers strike ended but I wasn’t sure by how much,” wrote one fan on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum.
Another joked, “Amazing restraint to pass on the Second Chance Tournament Losers’ Second Chance Tournament and the Champions Wildcard Wildcard.”
This comes after some viewers complained of “tournament hell” last year, which saw four Second Chance competitions, two Wildcard tournaments, the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament and, of course, the TOC. This tournament overload was in large part due to the writers’ strike.
“What we ultimately want is to see the very, very best compete with each other at the end of the postseason,” Davies said. “That requires an incredibly strong regular season, a robust regular season… we have about 28 weeks of regular season, in the future, we’re gonna catch up with ourselves, and it’ll be 35 to 36 weeks of regular season play.”
Foss said she is excited about the Second Chance tournaments, which will feature “Two one-week competitions of nine [players]… so that’s going to be very, very competitive.”
She also said the Wildcard tournament will be played under “wildcard” rules, meaning the winners of the five quarterfinal games and the four highest-scoring non-winners (“wild cards”) advance to the semifinals. The final will then be a “two-day total point affair.”
Davies added that he isn’t personally a fan of the wildcard format, but he said, “Jeopardy! isn’t an autocracy, and other members of the team have talked me into [it].”
Foss also confirmed that not every champion would automatically be included in the Champions Wildcard tournament, noting that “It’s a numbers game” and her “statisticians” are currently crunching the numbers.
Are you happy about fewer tournaments? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Jeopardy!, Weekdays, Check Local Listings
Watchlist Easy access to only the shows you care about — all in one simple place
Alerts Only important notifications — when a show is returning, when it becomes available to stream, and more.
Special Offers Exclusive products we release related to your favorite shows and streaming services