‘Jeopardy!’ Boss Talks Filling Final Tournament of Champions Spots With No Qualifiers
This has been a tough season on Jeopardy! When people win five games, they qualify for the Tournament of Champions. If there are not enough five-plus-game winners, the show will invite those who won four games. This season, they invited three-game winners and still don’t have enough players.
Here is what the Jeopardy! boss said they are doing to fill in the final slots.
Jeopardy! Lacking Quality TOC Contenders This Season
There have not been enough Jeopardy! players who won three games this season, so even the invitations to those who didn’t hit the automatic five-win invitations have fallen short. There is also the fact that Celebrity Jeopardy! champion Lisa Ann Walter pulled out of the TOC for scheduling conflicts.
The Jeopardy! The Tournament of Champions is supposed to feature 21 players. When a player wins five games, they receive an automatic invitation. The Celebrity Jeopardy! champion also received an invitation. However, only seven people won five games or more this season, so with Walter pulling out, the show still needed 14 more players.
Here are the automatic qualifiers this season:
- Adriana Harmeyer (15 wins – seeded to semifinals)
- Isaac Hirsch (nine wins – seeded to semifinals)
- Drew Basile (seven wins – seeded to semifinals)
- Greg Jolin (five wins)
- Alison Betts (five wins)
- Mark Fitzpatrick (five wins)
- Amy Hummel (five wins)
This means that the show sent out invites to the four-game winners. However, there have only been four of those, which means the TOC still had 10 openings. Growing desperate, the show dropped it down to three-game winners, but that only equaled nine people. The show was still one player short.
How Did Jeopardy! Fill In Final TOC Spot?
When asked about the vacant spot, Executive Producer Michael Davies spoke to producer Sarah Foss on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast episode on Monday. Foss said the game show has figured out a fix for the Tournament of Champions.
“Because Lisa Ann Walter is so busy with Abbott Elementary and couldn’t be with us as our Celebrity Jeopardy! champion, the person who is the first runner up in Champions Wildcard, which you will see in the upcoming weeks, that person is going to get a spot in the Tournament of Champions,” Foss said (via TV Insider).
They did say that they would invite Lisa Ann back for next year’s Tournament of Champions if she can make it. The 2025 Champions Wildcard features 15 players who will compete for that one last spot in the TOC, including two Second Chance winners.
The Second Chance Competition airs with 18 players, and two of them join the Champions Wildcard Tournament after that. These start on December 30, 2024. The Tournament of Champions premieres on January 27, 2025, and will last about two and a half weeks.
Are you excited about this year’s Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions? Do you like the idea of a Wildcard runner-up getting in? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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