Jeopardy! Masters ratings plummet by over half a million viewers from premiere after fan-favorite’s heartbreaking loss

JEOPARDY! Masters ratings have dropped by over half a million viewers from the premiere after the tournament has received complaints from viewers.

Jeopardy! Masters is airing two episodes this week, as semifinals will begin on Wednesday.

Jeopardy! Masters ratings have been slow as fans have complained about the current seasonCredit: Disney

On the May 21st episode, Roger had a devastating lossCredit: Disney
The U.S. Sun can exclusively reveal Jeopardy! Masters ratings have plummeted from the premiere.

The premiere episode on Wednesday, April 30 brought in a whopping 3,129,000 viewers.

But the May 21 episode dropped by over half a million with 2,590,000 viewers tuning in.

The premiere was the highest episode of the tournament, with the May 7 episode being the lowest in viewership with 2,352,000 fans watching.

DEVASTATING LOSS

The May 21 episode saw fan favorite Roger Craig’s loss after running out of time.

He competed in game two against Juveria Zaheer and Isaac Hirsh.

Going into final Jeopardy!, Juveria had $6,000, Roger had $10,800 and Isaac had $10,000.

Juveria and Isaac answered final Jeopardy! correctly, as she had $12,000 and he came in first with $12,001.

But Roger was only able to write half of the clue, which he would’ve had correct, as he ran out of time and lost with $10,001.

Jeopardy! fans make major complaint over players as they fail to get clue correct in triple stumper
But Roger does have a chance to make up for it in Tuesday’s quarterfinals.

The remaining champions in order of points are Victoria Groce, Yogesh Raut, Isaac, Juveria, Matt Amodio and Roger.

The final four will be determined and will compete in the semifinals on Wednesday.

Victoria Groce is currently in the leadCredit: Disney

SHOW BACKLASH

Jeopardy! Masters has received criticism from fans in its third season over casting and how the episodes have been rolled out.

One fan wrote, “Am I the only one who finds this season of Jeopardy Masters! weirdly boring?”

Another responded, “I’ve been really disengaged with Jeopardy Masters! lately, while a third agreed, “Even the recap thread has so few comments. I would have to imagine that others aren’t very engaged either.”

A fourth said, “Honestly, I hope ABC pulls the plug on it and we go back to super tournaments once in a blue moon — and I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratings are super low.”

A fifth wrote, “Plus, without James Holzhauer in the mix, it just doesn’t have the same spark.”

And a final said, “This has definitely been my least favorite season of Masters as well. But this might have something to do with the fact that ABC puts it on once a week rather than three or four times. I don’t think it works well as a weekly show.”

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!.

STAR MISSING

Fans were also upset over legend James Holzhauer not being cast in Masters.

Fans turned to Reddit to express their dismay over James’ absence.

One fan wrote, “I’m sure we’ll find out either from James on Twitter or through the podcast, but I’d have to assume that either James decided to pass on Masters this time or the taping schedule didn’t work for him.

“I can’t imagine the Jeopardy! producers would just actively choose to pass him over.”

A second speculated, “Now that Matt has taken over, James is no longer needed.”

A third commented, “Yeah no James is really unfortunate especially considering Brad is back.”

A fourth argued, “Masters are supposed to be legends. I think they overcompensated due to last year’s producer pick issue. Victoria and Yogesh earned their spots as did JIT and TOC winners, glad Brad got his due; sad James isn’t in the lineup, he’s the most established master.”

Another wrote, “No James? That’s surprising, guess they decided Top 2 stays retroactively or am I missing something?”

And another believes it is James’ decision, “I think it’s more likely though that he probably just had something going on around the time they were filming this year’s Masters and thus declined to play (either that or perhaps James is just wanting a break from Jeopardy for a bit- which considering that it’s been a major story of his life for the past 6 years or so, I can’t say I blame him).”

The U.S. Sun reached out to James’ rep for comment on why he is not on Masters.