‘Jeopardy!’ announces Tournament of Champions will be delayed if writers’ strike continues
"Jeopardy!" is currently in a "holding pattern" that might push back the annual Tournament of Champions competition due to the Hollywood writers’ strike.
A "Jeopardy!" spokesperson released a statement saying the show "never had any intention" of producing a Tournament of Champions for Season 39 "until the strike is resolved."
The statement continues: “No contestants from Season 39 have been contacted regarding their availability for any postseason tournaments, including the ToC. The ‘Jeopardy!’ postseason represents the pinnacle of our competition, and it should feature our strongest players playing our toughest original material.”
The statement came after “Jeopardy!” champion Ray Lalonde, who is second this season with $386,400 in winnings, told the Washington Post he had sent an email to the show's producers that he wouldn't be participating in this year's Tournament of Champions if the writers' strike continued, expressing concern that the questions would have to be recycled.
Lalonde also shared his sentiments on a Reddit forum, where other "Jeopardy!" winners wrote they would follow in his footsteps.
“As a supporter of the trade union movement, a union member’s son and a proud union member myself, I have informed the show’s producers that if the strike remains unresolved I will not cross a picket line to play in the tournament of champions,” Lalonde wrote.
The clues and other material on the syndicated game show are written by members of the Writers Guild of America. The WGA went on strike in May to fight for higher pay, a stable pay structure around streaming and provisions around the use of artificial intelligence.
The WGA strike is going on concurrently with a strike by SAG-AFTRA, a union that includes Hollywood actors. It’s the first time since 1960 that the writers and actors have been on strike at the same time.
"Jeopardy! has a long history with and tremendous respect for the WGA and our writers," the statement from the "Jeopardy!" spokesperson read. "We have always been careful to honor our WGA agreements and we would never air game material not created by WGA writers."
The show still plans to deliver new episodes of the show this fall using clues from its vast archive of previous seasons.
"Our current plan is to go into a holding pattern of sorts, pushing back the S39 postseason to first produce original episodes featuring the best of our WGA written material," the statement said.
The statement from "Jeopardy!" added that "Celebrity Jeopardy!" will return this fall with original material that was written by WGA writers before the strike.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
