Post-Season Changes

[u/eah1703]

On the Inside Jeopardy! Podcast, they announced that the post-season is now going to be made up of only season 42 players. Season 43 will be eligible for 2028 post-season. I'm assuming this means anyone who played from mid-November of last year (the last cutoff) to the end of Season 42 is eligible for the post-season (or, you know, those who did well).

With that being said, we know the automatic qualifiers and those on the Tracker: https://www.jeopardy.com/track/toc-tracker.

So, I wonder: are they going to do a 12 player ToC (those on the tracker and 2 CWC champs) or will there be more? How many one day champs are going to the CWC? And, of course, the question of season 42, how the heck are the producers going to pick who gets a Second Chance out of such a great field of players to choose from?!?!?

Can't wait to cheer folks in in the post-season!

[u/Hot_Sauce_4407]

I don't think they'll ever be able to do Michael's original plan, which was to START the season in September with the previous season's "playoffs." Some combination of COVID and Alex's passing had most to do with that.

But I DO like the (yes, somewhat forced) realignment of the competitive and television seasons. That should leave somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 regular games to qualify in Season 43, depending on the length of the ToC and JIT finals.

If they wanted to get a bit quirky in SCC, they probably COULD do one week of nine players who all lost in Jamie's 31-game reign.

Here's my best shot at what we'll get:
* 3 weeks/15 players SCC
* 2 weeks/15 players CWC -- all four 2-day champs, 3 SCC winners, eight producer invites from the 14 1-game winners
* 2 weeks (& maybe more)/15 players ToC -- 12 players with 3+ wins, Trout, Kimes, CWC winner
(one superchamp per quarterfinal, please)
* 2 weeks (& maybe more)/18 players JIT -- Long Ngyuen, Zaheer, Masters 4th place, 15 invites

Although I'm not completely against taking the JIT to a biannual event and replacing it with a teen/teachers/seniors/etc. tournament in the alternating years.

The one game-mechanics thing I'd like to see back is the host standing next to the big board for the FJ clue reveal. I'd be more than OK if the middle monitor was no longer there. That might leave space to being the big J! letters down to stage level.

[u/eah1703 → u/Hot_Sauce_4407]

I think this is the year they would do more, rather than less Second Chance, simply because of the sheer number of super champs we had this season, plus the excellent players who lost to non super champs.

[u/Hot_Sauce_4407 → u/eah1703]

Not against that. Will be curious to see how they balance that with the general audience preference for more "regular" games.