Jeopardy! To Increase Runner-Up Paydays In Wake Of Travel Expense Backlash
Jeopardy! is showing its second and third place contestants a little more money.
In he wake of the growing backlash surrounding game show's longstanding policy of not paying non-championship players' travel expenses, Jeopardy! will be "increasing the second and third place prize amounts by a thousand each," showrunner Michael Davies announced Monday on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. "So the third place prize will move up to $2,000. The second place prize will move up to $3,000. This is something that we've been working on ever since I really took the reins of the show. It's something that obviously is discussed widely within our social communities and with the community of our contestants. We understand that post covid... travel costs have increased. We understand how complicated funding a trip to Jeopardy is for, you know, many contestants within our community."
The change will take effect with Season 40, which is set to premiere on Monday, Sept. 11.
As we also reported Monday, Season 40 will feature both recycled questions and contestants amid the current writers' strike.
"I believe, principally that it would not be fair to have new contestants," Davies shared on the podcast. "Making their first appearance on the Alex Trebek stage, doing it with non-original material or as we'll talk about a combination of non-original material and material that was written pre-strike. And so we decided that really we needed to invite back and give a second chance in general to players who probably thought that their chance to come back and play on the Alex Trebek stage had gone forever. So we're gonna open the season with a second chance tournament for players from Season 37 who lost their initial game, and winners from that will advance to a Season 37 and Season 38 Champions Wild Card." (FYI: S38 contestants have already had their Second Chance competition.)
Once the writers' strike ends, "We'll head into our Season 39 post-season, which will culminate with the [Tournament of Champions]," Davies continued. "So episodes at the beginning of the season for the Season 37 and Season 38 contestants, the material that we're gonna be using is a combination of material that our WGA writers wrote before the strike, which is still in the database and material that is being redeployed from multiple, multiple seasons of the show."
Still unclear: Who will be standing behind the game show's iconic lectern when Season 40 launches on Monday. Sept. 11. Ken Jennings had been facing pressure to follow co-host Mayim Bialik's lead in not crossing the picket line. (As you'll recall, Bialik bowed out of Season 39's final weeks in a public expression of solidarity with the show's striking writers, prompting Jennings to step in and close out the season.)