Jeopardy! champion Sam Kavanaugh reveals the ‘exhausting’ part of show that ‘surprises people the most’

JEOPARDY! champ Sam Kavanaugh has revealed that the hardest part of the show isn’t knowing obscure Shakespeare trivia — it’s surviving the marathon taping schedule.

Sam told The U.S. Sun that Jeopardy! success hinges on preparing for “exhausting” five-game (or longer) tape days in a new interview.

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Jeopardy! contestant Sam Kavanaugh seen after winning the 2021 Tournament of ChampionsCredit: Quadra Productions

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Ken Jennings hosting nightly Jeopardy! in 2024Credit: Jeopardy!

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The Jeopardy! stage from a contestant’s POVCredit: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sam won the 2021 Tournament of Champions and most recently competed in the 2024 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament.

When it comes to preparing for the show, he emphasized how demanding the schedule can be.

Contrary to what casual viewers might think, the game show isn’t taped nightly.

Instead, the show tapes five episodes in a single day, with only a brief lunch break in between.

Sometimes, the taping days are even longer. During Sam’s Tournament of Champions, producers did seven shows in one day.

He said Jeopardy! is as much a physical challenge as it is a mental one – a fact that prospective players should keep in mind.

“The thing that generally surprises people the most is just how much of an endurance game it is,” he told The U.S. Sun over Zoom.

“You tape five episodes, sometimes up to seven episodes a day. Two ToCs ago, I did seven.

“It is exhausting,” he said with a deep sigh.

“It is the most tiring. I played physical sports as a kid – and I’ve never been as tired as after a day of taping.

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“We pretend it’s all taped on a different day, but because it’s all packed in there, there’s an element that’s really hard to gauge in contestants when you’re watching them.

“‘Are they good at this?’ – that endurance element.”

“There’s a lot of variants in the game,” he added, as a player’s streak can, of course, end for other reasons.

“A lot of it is who finds the Daily Doubles first, and if they can convert on those, they’ll probably win.”

But, he explained, a player can win “19 times out of 20” and still lose if they get burnt out too early.

However, Sam noted that players can go on to redeem themselves in the Tournament of Champions.

Even if someone loses earlier than expected in their initial run, they can still win the ToC – as he did, pocketing the coveted $250,000 prize as a five-day champ.

“I don’t think the length of run translates to who wins the ToC as we’ve seen in recent years,” he added.

TAPE DAY TROUBLES

Some of the show’s most recent champions said its breakneck schedule caused them to lose flat-out.

Typically, Jeopardy! films five episodes twice a week, but sometimes, even the weekly schedule is more jam-packed.

Adriana Harmeyer, a 15-day champ, attributed her loss partly to an exhausting schedule.

Her last 13 games were filmed over three consecutive days, and she was defeated on a rare third straight day of taping.

“It was more exhausting than I expected,” Adriana told the show. “By the third day, I could feel it wearing on me.

“I just did my best to fight through it, stay focused on buzzer speed, and remember things. It was an unusual experience.”

Drew Basile, who defeated Adriana, had a similar story.

The nine-day champ lost on the final show of a taping day, missing an easy Final Jeopardy answer – which he claimed he knew afterward.

“Jeopardy! is fatiguing,” Drew told EW. “By the end of the taping day I was exhausted.

“The amazing thing about Final Jeopardy was that I knew the answer. I knew it was Helen Keller, but I was so tired I couldn’t remember her name.

“I knew I got it wrong. I was just so tired that, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember Helen Keller’s name.”

Jeopardy! Universe

Jeopardy! first aired in 1964 until 1975. Then the nighttime version began in 1974. Since then, many spinoffs of the game show have emerged. Here they all are:

Jeopardy! – (syndicated) 1974 to present, weekdays on ABC at 7 pm ET.

Tournament of Champions – 1984 to present, features the top champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament.

Second Chance Tournament – 2022 to present features hand-selected non-winners from the season prior, where the prize is entry into Champions Wildcard.

Champions Wildcard – 2023 to present, features all one, two and three-day champions from the season prior worth entry into the Tournament of Champions.

Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament (syndication) – 2023 to present, features past greats invited by producers to vie for a slot in Masters.

Jeopardy! Masters (primetime) – 2023 to present, features the six highest-ranked Jeopardy! champions competing against each other.

Celebrity Jeopardy! (primetime) – 1992 to present, has celebrities compete against each other to raise money for charity.

Pop Culture Jeopardy (streaming) – 2024 to present, will feature teams of three tasked with pop culture trivia on Amazon Prime, hosted by Colin Jost, airdate TBD

Jeopardy! has done away with specialized tournaments like its College Tournaments, Kids Week, and Professor’s Tournament to gear towards a more sports-like model, with Masters being the top of the Jeopardy pyramid.

Other versions of Jeopardy! have fizzled out throughout the years as well, like Sports Jeopardy!.

WINNING EXPERIENCE

Sam also told The U.S. Sun what the first-ever JIT in the spring was like, which was a mini-tournament of all-time game show greats.

The JIT brought together legends from Jeopardy!’s 60-year history, ultimately won by Victoria Groce, who went on to win Masters.

“One of the big challenges with the JIT was we were in the dark on a lot of things,” he said.

“I felt more than a 50 percent chance I’d be invited, but I wasn’t sure, so tough to prepare.

“I think we all wanted to be at the top of our game, and many of us weren’t,” given that the players only had three weeks’ notice.

He recalled the excitement of seeing legends like Arthur Chu and Larissa Kelly in the hotel lobby, calling it a “field of dreams moment.”

“And they’re all just like normal people, as far as any Jeopardy! contestant is a normal person.”

The JIT, including Sam’s games, is re-airing as part of summer reruns before Jeopardy! returns with Season 41 on September 9, 2024.

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Sam Kavanaugh, seen here during his initial five-day Jeopardy! winning streakCredit: ABC

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Adriana Harmeyer is seen here losing after 15 winsCredit: Jeopardy!

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Drew Basile – who defeated Adriana – seen here celebrating a tiebreaker winCredit: Jeopardy