Regular Play Resumes; Masters Field Complete

We know exactly why many fans are fuming this week (even as others cease)

“THIS! Is… Jeopardy!” (And that’s it; that’s the intro.)

To quote Claire McNear’s subhead on Wednesday: “The winter (and fall and spring) of our discontent is over. Bring on the first-time contestants.”

After 152 games of tournament play to open the season — nearly two-thirds of Season 40 — new players graced the Alex Trebek Stage for the first time in 2023–24 on April 10. And that first game off the blocks was… well, a clunker. Fifteen incorrect responses, and an equal number of Triple Stumpers. The Combined Coryat of $20,800 was the lowest of the season. From corners of the pro-tournament set came the scolds directed at the “tournament fatigue” crowd that I anticipated: “be careful what you wish for,” “I hope you’re happy.”

The assumption underlying those barbs is that this past Wednesday was representative of the overall quality of regular play. I strongly caution against drawing that conclusion, or making any other sweeping generalization from a sample size of one (or three). Of last season’s 190 regular games, how many had a Combined Coryat of $20,800 or lower? Four. How many had 15 or more Triple Stumpers? Sixteen, all but one of which were in the last three months of the season. We’ve got to wait and see how things play out before anything definitive can be stated as to the quality of regular play relative to the tournaments as a whole, or any subset of them.

McNear cited my “road map” as being helpful to her; I was very glad to read that, as it validated the effort I put into creating and maintaining it. (I long ago lost count of how many times I’ve Tweeted the link to it.) There are a few quotes that I want to react to. First:

What should be music to the ears of the tournament weary and outright tournament haters is that it’s clear that Jeopardy! never wanted to do a season of endless tournaments and is unlikely to do anything of the sort again.

I feel fairly certain of that. I’ve updated the “blue histogram” I originally created a year ago to include the final special-play game count for Season 40, and I moved the dark blue range five games to the right (from 70-80, to 75-85; this is intended to represent the expected amount of special play in future seasons).

Then, I sought to display how far beyond Jeopardy!’s traditional programming of its calendar Michael Davies had intended to take the show. Now, I do so to demonstrate how far this unintended intervention had gone beyond where Davies wants to be. With this most unusual of seasons behind us, we can now turn our gazes forward and see how the original plan Davo envisioned, as amended recently by moving the postseason to the winter, plays out.

The second quote:

Even with a finale as riveting as the Invitational Tournament, this long stretch proved to be a rare divergence from what makes Jeopardy! special.

And the third:

…so much of what makes Jeopardy! what it is is the joy of watching new players shoot their shots. Give me your principals, your programmers, your huddled mechanics—let’s see some regular ol’ folks win big.

I couldn’t agree more with each of McNear’s two remarks here. And like her, I’m looking forward to seeing who’ll be next to take the Alex Trebek Stage by storm, who’ll be the next to capture the attention of the Jeopardy! viewership.

I initially read both those lines as clear ripostes to certain prominent voices in this community — assertions that said voices are out of step with the fandom. But McNear’s point may be orthogonal to what those voices are saying. To put it in slightly more plain terms: new contestants, and an emphasis on them over returning ones in tournaments, may be what makes Jeopardy! special — but do they make the show money? Do they deliver an audience?

The Masters “producers’ pick”

On Friday evening, during the “Inside Jeopardy!” Live on Tour event in Manhattan, it was announced that the sixth and final player in next month’s Jeopardy! Masters would be Amy Schneider, first runner-up in the just concluded Invitational Tournament.

Ahead of the announcement, on Friday morning, The Jeopardy! Fan said the following:

Regardless of who is picked, there are very likely a lot of fans who aren't going to be happy.

The producers are going to pick the player who they think will make for the most competitive and highest-rated tournament. And there are many possible players who could fit that role—many of whom won't be your personal favorite.

And oh boy, was he proven right. There was more than a bit of pushback on r/Jeopardy at the news of this selection. Most of it centered on the fact that Schneider had her chance to qualify for Masters by winning the JIT, and didn’t.

Saunders made what I thought was a very strong point in his editorial yesterday: anyone under consideration for the producers’ pick is guaranteed to fall into one of a number of categories that could be potentially disqualifying. Either they didn’t win JIT, just like Amy; didn’t win this year’s Tournament of Champions, which poses similar issues; or they would come to Masters with significant “rust.”¹

I want to emphasize two things that I feel might have been lost in all the criticism. Neither “Jeopardy! would have chosen the second place player in JIT” nor “Jeopardy! would have chosen Amy no matter what if she didn’t win JIT” is substantiated by anything. Both are entirely speculative.

One attendee of the live event posted on r/Jeopardy: “I thought it was interesting how Davies emphasized how many people were involved in the decision, including at Sony and ABC. He specifically mentioned wanting someone who would bring in an audience.” This particularly came in for some criticism, with some feeling it doesn’t align with Davies’s “Jeopardy! is a sport” mantra. One commenter on another thread noted derisively: “Jeopardy is a sport… specifically college football. Amy is Alabama.”

This gets at an important point. The two major American men’s college sports are exactly the right analogy to draw here. Our major professional sports leagues, and the major soccer competitions in Europe, have all the qualification criteria fully spelled out in advance of the start of play. The College Football Playoff and March Madness do not. So long as that is the case, then, just as with Jeopardy! Masters, the choices of those decision makers are going to be subjects of contention and debate. We get it every March when we see middle-of-the-pack power conference teams get at-large berths over mid-major regular-season champions who lost their conference tournament finals, and in early December with things like Alabama getting in over Florida State last year. Many may decry and bemoan it — but it’s a fact of life as things now stand, and it must be lived with. Indeed, I give Michael Davies credit for forthrightly admitting that ratings potential factored into the decision. At least we don’t have to speculate whether that was taken into account.

My own personal assessment of the wisdom of the producers’ pick starts and ends with one question: will Schneider be competitive against the other five players in the field? I think the answer is “yes.” She took a game off Victoria Groce in the JIT final. Throughout that most recent tournament, she showed her skills are still sharp. I look forward to seeing her test her mettle against the rest of this outstanding field next month.

1. In his editorial, Saunders specified “4-5 years.” Outside of the JIT or ToC, the most recent anyone else would have played is the 2022 ToC, for a gap of 18 months in air time — which still very much qualifies as “rust.”