The Jeopardy Invitational Tournament is approaching this month, and it is set to showcase some of the best Jeopardy! players of all time, including, fans hope, former champ Brad Rutter.
Jeopardy! fans might have been disappointed that Rutter wasn’t a part of last year’s Masters tournament, but it’s speculated the highest-earning contestant may return for JIT, which begins March 29.
Rutter, who won the 2001 Tournament of Champions, told Vulture last year that he’s “always down” to compete on the show again.
Rutter last appeared on the show in 2020’s The Greatest of All Time tournament, where he finished in third place behind recent Masters winner James Holzhauer (2nd place) and the show’s now host Ken Jennings (1st place). The GOAT tournament marked the first time Rutter had lost a game against a human opponent (he and Jennings lost to IBM’s computer system Watson in 2011). His total earnings of $4,953,436 (including tournaments) is a record for the show, ahead of Ken Jennings’ $4,370,700.
In a June 2023 installment of the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, producer Sarah Whitcomb Foss responded to his statement, saying, “Many of you wondered, ‘Where’s Brad Rutter? How is he not part of Masters?’” Foss continued. “And yes, Brad Rutter has made more money on Jeopardy! than any other contestant in history; those stats are so impressive. So what we now wanna see is, how is Brad right now? Can he come to the JIT, competing against some other greats, and prove that he deserves a spot as one of the current greats in Masters next year?”
Now, during a February 2024 installment of the podcast, Foss shared some more details on the JIT, revealing she’s “[…] really excited to see some of these folks back on the Alex Trebek stage competing,” before stating, “some of them haven’t competed in over a decade… some in recent years.”
Many fans are torn at the prospect, some wanting to see his return and others believing he has done it all.
(Credit: ABC/Richard Cartwright)
“On one hand, I’d love to see him get redemption. On the other hand, I would hate for his mystique to be diminished even further. He really doesn’t have anything left to prove,” one Reddit user expressed.
“I’m very curious to see if Sam Kavanaugh and Brad Rutter will be in the tournament. The reason that I think they might not be is that the two of them are the only two players that make sense as the “producers choice” pick for the masters,” another user said. “Brad because he’s one of the GOATS (despite his performance at the actual GOAT tournament) and Sam because he probably should have been at the last masters,” they conclude.
Rutter recently served as a Chaser for the American version of ABC‘s third season of The Chase.
Tournament of Champions 2022 finalists Amy Schneider, Andrew He, and Sam Buttrey are expected to participate in the upcoming invitational, with the likes of Kavanaugh, Colby Burnett, and Austin Rogers to make appearances as well.
But are you convinced Rutter will make his triumphant return? Let us know in the comments below.
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