The Tournament of Champions (TOC) is one of the special two-week tournaments held nearly every season on Jeopardy! Fifteen of the highest-winning contestants who have played the game since the last Tournament of Champions, including the winner of the College Championship, face off to determine the ultimate winner.
How the Tournament of Champions Works:
For the first week (five shows), each game features three different contestants. The winners of each show move on, along with four wild cards. The wild card spots are awarded to the highest money winners, not counting the actual winners in each episode. In the case of a tie, the person with the highest score before Final Jeopardy! moves on.
The nine semi-finalists move on to the second week, during which the first three shows determine who will move on to the finals. The three winners of these games are the finalists, and compete in the final two days of competition to crown the winner.
During the finals, contestants' winnings are not carried over from the first day to the second. Rather, the scores from both days are added together to determine the winner of the tournament.
Prizes:
The winner of the tournament takes home $250,000. The runner-up is guaranteed $100,000, and the second runner-up is guaranteed $50,000. Both runners-up take home either their guaranteed prize amount, or the amount of money they earned in the finals – whichever amount is higher.
Semi-finalists receive $10,000 while quarter-finalists earn $5,000.
'Jeopardy!' Tournament of Champions Winners:
Since the Tournament of Champions began during the original run of Jeopardy! starting in 1964, the list of TOC winners is quite long. Their names are:
- Babs McClellan (1965)
- Burns Cameron (1966)
- Red Gibson (1968)
- Jay Wolpert (1969)
- Gene Cheatam (1970)
- Rock Johnson (1971)
- Ann Marie Sutton (1972)
- Paula Ogren (1973)
- Denny Golden (1974)
- Jerry Frankel (1985)
- Chuck Forrest (1986)
- Bob Verini (1987)
- Mark Lowenthal (1988)
- Tom Cubbage (1989)
- Bob Blake (1990)
- Jim Scott (1991)
- Leszek Pawlowicz (1992)
- Tom Nosek (1993)
- Rachael Schwartz (1994)
- Ryan Holznagel (1995)
- Michael Dupee (1996)
- Daniel F. Melia (1998)
- David Abbott (1999)
- Robin Carroll (2000)
- Brad Rutter (2001)
- Mark S. Dawson (2003)
- Russ Schumacher (2004)
- Michael Falk (2006)
- Celeste DiNucci (2007)
- Dan Pawson (2008)
- Vijay Balse (2010)
- Roger Craig (2011)
Fun Facts:
- Since there are no records or surviving recordings from the original Art Flemming-hosted Jeopardy! series, the winner of the very first Tournament of Champions is unknown. The finalists, however, were Phyllis Gallo, John Murphy, and Terry Thompson.
- During the original series, the winners of the TOC were also awarded an extra $1,000 and a trip. They also received a trophy called The Griffin Award, in honor of series creator Merv Griffin.
- The 2008 Tournament of Champions was filmed live at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
