The 2025 Jeopardy Masters is Making Several Changes - All For The Better

 

We are fast approaching the five year mark since the passing of Alex Trebek, a period which has had more controversy, changes and upheavals in nearly every aspect of Jeopardy then the previous 35. Those of you who have read my articles about this know that my opinion about this has never changed: that the actual gameplay and the champions are always enough to overwhelm what we hear behind the scenes. All things considered, I believe I have been proven correct by this assumption.

One of the more inspired changes by the producers has been the Jeopardy Masters, a prime time event that takes place during the month of May and has featured some of the greatest Jeopardy champions to ever play the game. That doesn’t mean the first two were not each shrouded in controversy.

The inaugural one was a mild one: with the notable exception of James Holzhauer, all of the participant had their runs during the first season where Alex Trebek was no longer the host. Given the quality of all five few could complain.

The sophomore edition was more complicated. That year saw the first Jeopardy Invitational Tournament which was won by Victoria Groce. With one slot still be filled the choice was left to producer Michael Davies who handled it, shall we say, clumsily. He announced that it would be Amy Schneider, who had been the runner-up in the Invitational. Furthermore he made it clear that he knew it would be controversial but he didn’t care: he was doing this solely to bring in ratings. Amy had to address the issue when she was interviewed the first time on the Masters, which she did with more grace then the producer did.

As we entered the lead-up for the 2025 Masters it seems the show was facing a different issue. For reasons that are not yet disclosed but may become clear in the days to come, James Holzhauer made it clear he could not participate. Considering not only his prominence among the all time Jeopardy greats but his presence both in the Masters as a player – he won the first one and finished third in the second – as well as his gifts for showmanship, this might have been a blow too hard for the fledgling spin-off to survive.

Faced with that possibility the producers have clearly come up with a new way of dealing with. The 2025 Jeopardy Masters are now scheduled to start on April 30^th. However this year, nine former Jeopardy greats instead of six will be participating. In addition to Neilesh Vinjamuri, this year’s winner of the Tournament of Champions and Matt Amodio, a two-time Jeopardy Master who won this year’s Jeopardy Invitational, the producers have decided to invite back the two runners-up in both the Tournament of Champions and the Jeopardy Masters. For the 2025 TOC, those would be Adriana Havemeyer and Isaac Hirsch, for the 2025 JIT, Roger Craig and Juveria Zaheer. (I’ll get to the ninth in a moment.)

There’s already some expression of disappointment online. Unlike last season when I had some real issues with Amy Schneider’s being invited back, not only don’t I share them I think that all of these changes are ones that can only benefit the Jeopardy Masters long-term. And I’ll explain my reasoning.

First as a long-time Jeopardy fan and a super-tournament fan as well,  the more former Jeopardy greats are in any such Tournament the more it will certainly guarantee I tune it. I’m positive most long-time fans feel the same way.

Second, and more importantly in the case of three of the players who are being invited back, no one can argue that they are watering down the strength of the competition by doing so. Adriana won 15 games last year, the most any player has managed since Ray Lalonde’s 13 game streak in December 2022-January 2023. She is as much a Jeopardy Master as Mattea Roach and Matt Amodio and deserves the chance to play among them. Isaac Hirsch, in addition to his nine wins and $212,000, has a clear showmanship to him that one has come to expect from those like Sam Buttrey and Andrew He.

And I don’t need to make an argument as to why Roger Craig being in the Jeopardy Masters is a good idea. I’ve already written at least two articles on the subject. I was pulling for him to win the JIT more than any other player and when I heard that they were planning a Jeopardy Wild Card pick, I wanted the producers to find any technicality possible to put Roger Craig in the Tournament. Now that he’s been picked, I’m even more thrilled because he’s going to go up against fellow worthies, among them Matt Amodio, Isaac and Adriana.

Third, there are more than a few chances for rivalries to pay off. You know that you want to see a rematch between Isaac, Adriana and Neilesh and we probably want to see Juveria Zaheer face off against Matt and Roger again. There are also chances of rivalries between them and some of the Masters as well. In the case of Victoria Groce, I’d like to see her face off against Juveria, in part because they are two sides of the same Jeopardy coin when it came to getting here.

Fourth  – and this may seem like heresy – I actually think it would be good if James Holzhauer sat this Masters out. No disrespect to the self-described game show villain but James had a habit of being for so many of his Masters games a little too good. This was certainly true in the inaugural one. It was less so in the second (he learned that hard way against both Yogesh Raut and Victoria) but he was still way too good in so many of his matches. For the long term future of the Masters – and I want it to have one – it can only benefit from not having one single player dominate the entire event. James came very close to winning back-to-back Masters and I think that could have affected viewership negatively too. I argued in favor of that when Victoria won last year, and it’s just as true today.

And finally, there’s the identity of the 9^th member of the Masters. The original Jeopardy Master. Yes, Jeopardy fans its happening: for the first time in the post Trebek era Brad Rutter will be taking the Alex Trebek stage.

Don’t kid yourself if you don’t think that every Jeopardy fan since the Masters was created has been asking this same question: “Where is Brad Rutter?”  This is the winningest player in Jeopardy and game show history. This is a player who we’ve all wanted to see face off against Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach.

Well, we won’t be granted that but as a more than adequate consolation prize we will see him face off against Roger Craig, Adriana Havemeyer and Matt Amodio. We will see him face off against his co-star from The Chase Victoria ‘The Queen’ Groce. We will get to see Ken Jennings ask questions of Brad – and don’t say you don’t want to hear that back and forth. Anyone who loves Jeopardy knows that for fifteen years we watched Brad and Ken face off against each other for Jeopardy supremacy and Brad always won. Roger Craig knows that first hand, he had a front row seat to that in the Battle of the Decades. (I want to see their rematch in particular.)

Brad, of course, will not use the mantle of ‘Game Show Villain’ – it never suited him - but considering how much of his career on Jeopardy was mixed with Ken Jennings I want to see these old rivals interact. And one more thing that I’m sure Ken or Brad will bring up. From his first appearance on the Jeopardy stage in 2000 until the Jeopardy All-Star Games in 2019 Brad Rutter was the only player in Jeopardy history who never lost a game. (Well, to a human.) Only two people ever beat him. One is now the host; the other isn’t going to be attending this year. I want to see if the streak holds or if it doesn’t, who gets to notch a victory against Brad?

I’m not sure if the Jeopardy Masters has been around long enough for purists to exist or whether they’ll start nitpicking already. Myself, I could give a damn. This lineup of players already is one of the most satisfying I’ve seen for any Tournament in  years, going back to the Battle of the Decades. It has a fifty percent increase in the number of participants which means it’s going to be at least fifty percent more entertaining. April 30^th can’t come nearly soon enough for me and for fans of Jeopardy both past and present, I’m guessing they feel the same.