Jeopardy! Seeks To Expand Franchise With Master League

Julia Henderson September 27th, 2022 - 4:39 PM

Jeopardy is planning to expand its franchise by adding a Master League which will bring back the most winning players and pit them against each other.

“What we really need to develop is the pro-level version of the game, It seemed ridiculous to me that we have this sport where every single year we take all of our best players — we take our LeBrons and our Dwyanes — and we switch them all out.”Executive producer Michael Davies told the New York Times. As well as this pro league of Jeopardy Davies has played with the idea of a pop culture version of the franchise.

On Aug. 24, ABC announced a new season of Celebrity Jeopardy! would air on Sept. 25. The new primetime season includes Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience, Yappie), Michael Cera (Superbad, Juno), BJ Novak (Reign Over Me, The Smurfs 2), Iliza Schlesinger (Paradise, Pieces of a Woman), Ray Romano (Grilled, Bad Education), Constance Wu (Best Friends Forever, Deadly Revenge), Aisha Tyler (Bad Therapy, Friendsgivng), and Patton Oswalt (Freaks of Nature, Super Gidget). Mayim Bialik (Don’t Drink the Water, The Big Bang Theory) will host the additional season.

According to USA Today, Davies explained in a video shared on the Jeopardy! YouTube channel some new additions to the way the game is played.

“We don’t really know how smart they are… We don’t really know the trivia level of the players who are playing the game,” Davies explained. “So we wanted to ease up the material in the Jeopardy! round. Double Jeopardy! It gets harder. Triple Jeopardy! it gets harder again, but it’s a much more accessible show for an entire family.”

Jeopardy originally aired on NBC on March 30, 1964 where it ran until 1979. The game show was created by Merv Griffin (Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune) and his wife Julann Griffin (Haunted Honeymoon, The Woman in Red). Art Fleming (American Raspberry, MacArthur) was the host while Jeopardy was at NBC. The show that we are familiar with premiered in 1984 with Alex Trebek (Hockey Night in Canada, Double Dare) as host and Johnny Gilbert as the announcer. Trebek hosted until he died in 2021. Trebek was a hard act to follow and many guest hosts have tried out. As of now, Ken Jennings and Bialik have signed deals to continue hosting Jeopardy.