‘Jeopardy!’ Boss Teases Bringing Back 3 Forgotten Tournaments, Fans React
‘Jeopardy!’ Boss Teases Bringing Back 3 Forgotten Tournaments
Jeopardy, Inc!
Good news for fans of Jeopardy! tournaments – the producers are thinking of bringing back three tournaments that only lasted for a few years: the Teen, College, and Kids Tournaments.
According to Slate, executive producer Michael Davies told the outlet that they are coming back…eventually. “Every year I go to Sarah [Whitcomb-Foss], and I say, ‘Gee, I really want to do Teen and College,’” Whitcomb-Foss is Jeopardy!‘s other co-executive producer.
The National College Tournament was last held in 2022. It featured 36 undergraduate students from across the country. They participated in a two-week tournament for $100,000.
The Teen Tournament was started in 1987 by former host Alex Trebek. In the tournament, 15 teenagers would face off for the chance to win $25,000. In 2019, the winner took home $100,000 and Rice-A-Roni.
It was hosted nearly every year from 1987 to 2019, sometimes twice in one year. Critics and fans alike loved the tournament. After that, Trebek got sick and eventually died in November 2020 from Stage 4 cancer, and the tournament stopped.
“Several networks and platforms have approached us with interest about doing Teen and College, either in primetime or on streaming,” Davies told Slate. “We’ve got so close a couple of times, and it just hasn’t quite happened. But it’s just a matter of time.”
The producer shared that he has prioritized Jeopardy!‘s post-season, which is the multi-tournament spectacle that rolls out towards the end of the season and includes the Tournament of Champions, the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament, the Second Chance Tournament, and many more.
“We’ve been slowed down in trying to bed in the postseason and being sensitive to the Jeopardy! audience who wanted more regular play,” he said, stating that tournament fatigue is real.
“At a certain point, I’m going to have to say either we’re going to do it for a streamer or for a network in prime, or we will figure a way to get it into the regular season, the 46 weeks of syndicated Jeopardy!, because we are committed to bringing it back.”
If they are brought back, the EP shared that he would like to see the Teen Tournament as a “semi-annual May showdown,” whereas the revamped College Tournament could air every other year.
He also wants to revamp Kids Week, which last aired in 2014. The event featured kids 10 to 12, who played in a one-week tournament for $15,000. It was held from 1999 to 2014.
“I think there was a feeling at Jeopardy! that when they did it with kids, it was like, ‘Oh my God, losing was too hard’—that it was emotionally too tough on the kids who were playing,” Davies told the outlet despite disagreeing with that sentiment. He said that kids participate in National Spelling Bees for the children’s version of Mastermind and said they are “alright.”
Would you want to see Trebek’s favorite tournament return? Let us know in the comments.
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