Season 41 Preview and FAQ

Many things you might like to know. But likely not everything.

Well, we’ve had a good few weeks throughout August and early September, reliving the Tournament of Champions and the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament from this past season. But we’re about to get back to our usual routine. I’m going to be writing this in the style of a “frequently asked questions,” and writing it to the level of knowledge of a casual fan, or someone who may not necessarily watch the show every night. So, if you think it’s getting too pedantic, keep an eye on the subject headings and use them to get to the information you’re looking for.

When does Jeopardy! Season 41 start?

Monday, September 9.

But there’s an asterisk on that. It’s also the first of seven Monday Night Football games that will be broadcast on ABC (Jets at 49ers). Kickoff is at 5:15 Pacific; the pregame coverage begins forty-five minutes earlier, so that will impact Washington, DC and Miami, as well as every ABC station in the Pacific Time Zone and in Alaska. If that affects you, check your local listings. (I’ll be keeping tabs on the moves, and I do my best to try to get them all right, but I’m not perfect.)

How long will it run?

Forty-six weeks — 230 games. As has been the case since 1986-87 (with the exception of the COVID shortened Season 36), Jeopardy! runs the longest season of any North American game show. From this coming Monday night until July 25, 2025, a new, first-run episode of Jeopardy! will air each and every weekday.

EVERY weekday? Even holidays? Even on Election Day?

Yes. Somewhere on the Alex Trebek Stage are the four words that adorned the bumper sticker of Spaceball One: “WE BRAKE FOR NOBODY.” No matter how widely preempted on any given day, Jeopardy! will air somewhere in North America on all 230 of those days — even if only on those stations north of the border that partner with the show.

But your point is worthwhile, and I take it. Preemptions are a fact of life about our beloved game. And this being a year divisible evenly by four, the Tuesday that falls between November 2 & 8 (this year, the 5th) is going to be a problem. The Executive Producer has acknowledged as much on the podcast. With election coverage starting at 7:00 PM Eastern, only the Central Time Zone will be unscathed — and even some of it won’t escape.

I detailed events with major potential to preempt Jeopardy! on Monday.

Where we left off

What’s going to start the season?

As is Jeopardy! tradition, not observed only last season and in Season 16 (1999-2000), a regular game will kick us off.

Who’s defending?

Rachel Bradley, an ESL instructor from Greenbelt, Maryland. She defeated Davey Morrison in the Season 40 finale; entering the new season, her one-day cash winnings total $23,597.

Regular play versus tournaments

Will there be as many tournaments as last season?

NO. Absolutely not.

Two-thirds of last season, 152 of its 230 games, were tournaments. The first seventy-one of them (September 11 to December 19) were produced as a “holding pattern” (Davies’s words) in response to the WGA strike last year. As there is no strike affecting the show currently, that won’t need to be repeated.

But what about all the tournaments that came after that? Are they sticking around?

Yes, they’re here to stay.

The final 81 tournament games (December 20 to April 9) were the “postseason” that has been long planned by Davies to become a regular part of the Jeopardy! calendar, and the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament. Originally, the plan was to have the postseason lead off each new season, with regular play finally getting underway shortly before Thanksgiving. JIT was to air in February, and a Teen or College tournament in May.¹

In March, Davies announced that the postseason would instead be contested in the first quarter of the calendar year — that is, roughly one-third the way into the season.² But regardless, it’s still happening. Instead of the qualifying period being “the previous season,” it’ll instead go back to “since the previous Tournament of Champions” as it generally was throughout the 2000s and 2010s. In practice, this will mean “during the previous calendar year.” So, we’ll have, consecutively:

• Second Chance, featuring non-winners invited by the show

• Champions Wildcard, with the Second Chance winners and all winners of at least one game who don’t qualify directly into the ToC

• The Tournament of Champions, including the Champions Wildcard winners and the biggest winners from regular play in 2024 (including all five or more game champions), as well as Lisa Ann Walter, the 2023-24 Celebrity Jeopardy! champion — its winner qualifies into the next Jeopardy! Masters, expected in May 2025 on ABC prime time

Following all of that, there’ll be a Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament; in addition to those eligible for the 2024 edition, I’d expect that players from the November 2022 ToC (think Ryan Long and Jonathan Fisher here, among others) will be considered, and possibly also the February-March 2024 ToC (Troy Meyer, Ben Chan, Cris Pannullo)³. The JIT winner also qualifies for Jeopardy! Masters.

So, less tournament play… how much less?

Significantly less than in 2023-24 — but also, significantly more than the historical average.

Davies has said repeatedly on Inside Jeopardy! that he wants a shorter postseason than the one in 2023-24. Second Chance, Champions Wildcard, and the ToC ran a combined 66 episodes in Season 40; when he initially set out the Season 40 plan just over a year ago, Davies said that he envisioned all of that taking about ten weeks. So I presume that’s still his target.

He has also said that he thinks 30 weeks of regular play per season is the right amount for the show; thus, roughly two-thirds regular play, and one-third tournaments. It would, of course, mean 16 weeks, or 80 episodes, of tournament play. While well down from the 152 we got in Season 40, that remains a significant jump up from the historical average⁴ of 41 special-play episodes per year.

I actually think it’s likely we’ll see fewer than 80 special play games in 2024-25, for reasons I set out below.

When can we expect the tournaments to start?

It’s not certain right now; I don’t think even the show knows for sure just yet. The exact date is dependent upon how many champions there are and their distribution by number of wins. Sarah Foss did say that “all of the remaining [sic] of 2024” would be regular games.⁵ That would indicate a postseason start date in January 2025. However, I believe it might shift a bit earlier — possibly into the second half of December 2024. I think, at an absolute minimum, the first three months of Season 41 will be all regular play.

I’ve been thinking about the answer to this in terms of: determine when the Tournament of Champions will end at the latest, and work backward from there. I have two dates in mind for that. The first is February 27; that’s the last day of the key Nielsen February ratings period (“sweeps”). The second is two days earlier; ending the ToC on February 25 would allow for a JIT in the same format as last year (nine quarterfinals, three semifinals, first to two wins final series) to end no later than March 19, avoiding any part of that being preempted by March Madness.

Going with the more restrictive date of the 25th, kicking off the postseason on New Year’s Day would yield a length of forty episodes; pushing it back to December 26 to stay clear of the preemptions on ABC on Christmas Day for the NBA, that goes up to 44. If that isn’t a functional constraint on the show’s scheduling, moving the postseason start back to December 16 bumps up the length to 52 games, which is right around the maximum potential length had it remained at the beginning of the season.

How many players will end up returning?

A consideration related to length of the postseason is how many players it can accommodate. We can game that out to an extent. A latest end date for the ToC of February 25 means its last quarterfinal will be two weeks earlier, on February 11 (three semifinals and a final series of up to seven games) — thus, on that date, we’ll be down to nine players. If there are no two-game finals in either Second Chance or Champions Wildcard, here’s the maximum number of total postseason players for each of the three lengths I mentioned above:

• Start date: January 1 (40 games) — 69 players

• Start date: December 26 (44 games) — 77 players

• Start date: December 16 (51 games) — 91 players

Each of those player counts would be reduced by two for every two-game final before the ToC. If the maximum capacity of the postseason is exceeded, the show might institute “play-in” games for Champions Wildcard as it did last season. Then, they were audio-only, on TuneIn Radio; now, Amazon Prime Video might also be an option, given the partnership it has forged with the show in recent months. Davies has also left open the possibility that some champions may not return.⁶

One other thing to note. The total number of players in the postseason must be an odd number, as each game, two-game total-point affair, or the ToC final series, eliminates two players, and one will be left standing at the end. It’s a certainty that the old system of quarterfinal “wildcards” (non-winning high scorers advancing) is a thing of the past, at least as long as Davies is in charge. Not only does it seem to simply not be his preference, but it’s not compatible with larger tournament fields, where sequestration of the quarterfinalists who haven’t yet played can’t be accomplished.

What about that high school or college tournament you mentioned earlier — the one intended to be in May?

We haven’t heard anything about one of those in 2024-25. If it were to happen in Season 41 at all, I’d expect it to be next May.⁷ When Davies announced he was moving the postseason, he didn’t mention anything about this tournament. It’s possible that there could be one in May 2025; it could also be shifted to the November sweeps period, which means we wouldn’t have such an event until 2025-26. Not only does putting it in November give the show something for that sweeps period, it takes such a tournament out of May, where it might divide attention between that event on the syndicated program and Masters in prime time.

Something else I want to note here, about the Teachers Tournament. I know it has its fans, but I think it’s not going to be returning anytime soon. Some history here. Teachers was originally added back in Season 27 to fill the May 2011 sweeps period; there was no Tournament of Champions that season, and the show needed something to put there, and to fill out a seven-week summer hiatus. With the additional tournament play that Davies has brought in and the restructuring and relative standardization of the Jeopardy! calendar, the Teachers Tournament, beloved as it might be by some, no longer serves a purpose.

What about the other series — the primetime and streaming incarnations?

Pop Culture Jeopardy!

PCJ finished taping last week. We know the following about it:

• …it will be an 81-team 40-episode single-elimination tournament. Further information about the format:

  • Each episode will feature three teams of three—all nine players will be on stage at the same time. Each team will also have a team name/uniform motif.

  • Each of the nine players can try to ring in on a clue. When a player successfully gets in, they respond without consultation.

  • If a player is incorrect, a team can’t rebound its own miss.

  • For Final Jeopardy and Daily Doubles, teams may consult on both wager and response.

  • Prizes range from $1,500 per team (eliminated in the first round) to $300,000 for the overall championship team.⁸

Audience members have commented on Reddit that they had to sign non-disclosure agreements, and that there is a different music package.

Pop Culture Jeopardy! will stream on Amazon Prime Video, hosted by Colin Jost of Saturday Night Live; no release date has been announced as yet.

Celebrity Jeopardy!

A Season 3 has been confirmed to air on ABC primetime. ABC has it listed as “midseason” on its schedule; we won’t see it back this autumn.⁹ None of it has yet been taped, nor have any tapings been listed by On Camera Audiences for ticketing. It’s also unknown whether Ken Jennings will be back for another season as host.

Jeopardy! Masters

Thought not confirmed – and likely not to be for a while, as its second season wasn’t officially announced until February – Jeopardy! Masters is expected to return in May 2025. Its six competitors are planned to be:

• Victoria Groce, 2024 Masters winner

• Yogesh Raut, 2024 Masters first runner-up

• James Holzhauer, 2024 Masters second runner-up

• The winner of the 2025 Tournament of Champions

• The winner of the 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament

• A player selected by, and at the sole discretion of, the producers

Anything else?

If there’s something you’d be interested to know that I haven’t covered here, there are all sorts of ways to ask it. In the comments on this post. Twitter. Reddit. Bluesky. If I think the answer to any such question would be of general interest, I’ll add it in this section.

Hang in there — we’re almost through the hiatus. I’m sure you agree that it’ll be so great to have new Jeopardy! back next week!

1. Inside Jeopardy!, August 7, 2023.

2. Inside Jeopardy!, March 11, 2024.

3. 2022 ToC competitors Amy Schneider, Mattea Roach, and Matt Amodio are already guaranteed spots in the JIT as the three players relegated from the last Masters. 2024 ToC winner Yogesh Raut is already in the next Masters, by virtue of his first runner-up finish in the last one.

4. This “historical average” excludes: Season 1 & 2 (scheduled for only 39 weeks); Season 21 (nearly half of which was special play, due to the one-off Ultimate Tournament of Champions); Season 36 (shortened eight weeks by COVID); Seasons 37 & 38 (each had only ten special play games, due to lingering COVID effects); and Season 40 (impacted by the WGA strike).

5. Inside Jeopardy!, April 22, 2024.

6. Inside Jeopardy!, May 6, 2024.

7. Not only did Foss say that remainder of 2024 would be regular play, a high school or college tournament would require separate testing from the normal Anytime Test — and no such testing has been advertised by the show’s website. Plus, based on available ticketing, enough tapings of regular play are slated to take the show through the week before Thanksgiving.

8. The Jeopardy! Fan, August 17, 2024.

9. The Jeopardy! Fan, May 18, 2024.