Paramount Press Express | AMY SCHNEIDER WINS ‘JEOPARDY!’ TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

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11/21/2022

AMY SCHNEIDER WINS ‘JEOPARDY!’ TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 7:30 P.M. ET 11/21/22

AMY SCHNEIDER WINS ‘JEOPARDY!’ TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

Andrew He Claims Second Place; Sam Buttrey Finishes Third

CULVER CITY, CALIF. (November 21, 2022) – After six games of intense intellectual competition, Amy Schneider, a writer from Oakland, Calif., won the JEOPARDY! Tournament of Champions in an episode that aired today.

Schneider was the first to win three games against Andrew He, a software developer from San Francisco, who won two finals games, and Sam Buttrey, an associate professor of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School from Pacific Grove, Calif., who won one game of the series. With Schneider’s win, she claimed the $250,000 grand prize; He took home $100,000 for second place; and Buttrey came in third and walked away with $50,000.

“I feel amazing,” Schneider said after her win. “Earlier in the finals, I had this sudden moment of seeing myself and being like ‘I’m on stage in the Tournament of Champions finals,’ and that was crazy. And I won! It’s a great feeling."

Schneider emerged victorious despite finding no Daily Doubles in the final game; Buttrey found all three but still trailed both Schneider and He going into Final Jeopardy!: Schneider was in the lead with $15,600; He had $14,200; and Buttrey had $8,000. The Final Jeopardy! clue was as follows:

Category: PLAYS

Clue: THE JANUARY 12, 1864 WASHINGTON EVENING STAR REPORTED ON A PERFORMANCE OF THIS “DASHING COMEDY” TO “A FULL AND DELIGHTED HOUSE”

Correct Response: What is “Our American Cousin”?

Buttrey wagered everything and did not provide the correct response, while both Schneider and He responded correctly. He’s wager was $2,801, finishing with $17,001; Schneider wagered $13,000 for a final score of $28,600 to win the game and the tournament.

The Tournament of Champions finals was a rematch between Schneider and He: in their first meeting in Season 38, Schneider ended He’s five-game streak and kicked off her historic 40-game run on the show, which landed her in the number two spot all-time behind only Ken Jennings.

“I both wanted to [compete against him] and was afraid of facing him again,” Schneider said. “I knew he was one of the top competitors in the field. He was definitely someone that I knew could beat me because he very nearly did before, and he did a couple of times here as well. Any of the three of us really could have won if a very small number of things had gone differently. I’m glad we got a really fair chance to test our skills against each other, and I’d love to play him again someday, somehow.”

Schneider is the first openly transgender contestant to compete in and win the JEOPARDY! Tournament of Champions, and she recognizes the importance of representation.

“I’m going to keep going out there and being me,” she said. “Being in places where people like me haven’t been before, it’s a very powerful thing to do.”

Schneider’s win capped off a historic Season 38, which featured super-streakers like her, Matt Amodio, and Mattea Roach entering the record books, and culminating in JEOPARDY!’s first official post-season, which included the first-of-its-kind Second Chance event and the biggest Tournament of Champions field to date.

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JEOPARDY!, America’s Favorite Quiz Show™, is in its 39^th season in syndication. With a weekly audience over 20 million viewers,* JEOPARDY! is the top-rated quiz show on television. The show has won a total of 43 Emmy^® Awards, holds the Guinness World Records^® title for the most Emmy^® Awards won by a TV game show and received a Peabody Award for “celebrating and rewarding knowledge.” JEOPARDY! is produced by Sony Pictures Television, a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company; it is distributed domestically by CBS Media Ventures and internationally by Paramount Global Content Distribution, both units of Paramount.

* Source: Nielsen NPower, 2020/21 (9/14/20-7/4/21)

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