Jeopardy! Masters Season 3 took a huge dive in ratings and fans are worried that means a Season 4 won’t happen. Yogesh Raut became the latest Masters champion after defeating Victoria Groce and Juveria Zaheer in a close final.
The final scores came down to a nail-biting finish as Raut scored most of his in Double Jeopardy. After adding all the scores together from both final games, he still won by only a few thousand more points. Groce, who was the 2024 champion, was the only contestant to score points in the first finals game, but she still couldn’t come out on top.
As of June 5, 2025, Jeopardy! Masters had 3.394 million viewers tune in to the final episode, which was a 3.58 percent decrease from the semi-final game on the same night, according to Neilsen. The semi-finals had a 74.17 percent increase in viewers with 3.52 million people watching compared to the week before, which had 2.021 million viewers.
However, these ratings are startling when looking at 2024’s viewership. With one less episode, Season 2 brought in 4.564 million viewers during its finale, which was the highest-watched episode that season. And the viewership gradually increased after the fifth episode.
“For those looking for a comparison of how the main competition for Masters has dropped year-to-year, for this season Survivor did .7 in the demo vs. .75 in Spring 2024, a decline of around 7%. Total viewer average this year was 4.63 million vs. 4.74 in 2024, holding nearly steady with a loss of under 2%,” a Reddit user pointed out.
“Note that Masters ratings did edge up at the end of the season when it was no longer facing new episodes of Survivor on CBS, the Chicago dramas on NBC, and The Floor on Fox.”
Some fans think they know why the ratings for Masters dropped. It used to air at 8/7c on ABC, shortly after the syndicated version of the game show. However, for Season 3, the timeslot was at 9/8c, a whole hour later, when most Jeopardy! watchers are probably gearing up for bed. However, if missed, fans could watch it the next day on Hulu.
“I think a big portion of the ratings drop can be attributed to being moved back an hour,” a Reddit user said.
“Yes, the 9pm time slot is an absolute killer. Most nights I’m not going to watch the regular show from 7:00-7:30, bide my time for 90 minutes, then tune in again from 9:00-10:00. That disrupts the flow of my whole evening. The 8:00pm slot was much better,” replied another.
One fan said that the “whole thing just needs to be shorter.”
Others also don’t like the fact that Masters and the tournaments are the “same people.” “I watch regular Jeopardy! every day it’s new. I’m not watching Masters because it’s the same people over and over,” one wrote.
“Same. It was neat when having players from years past was a novelty, something done every few years. But now it’s an annual occurrence with mostly the same people,” replied one fan.
“Returnee tournaments every year are simply too frequent. No other reality competition has so many seasons with the same contestants. Factor in the JIT which also has returnees and it gets difficult to drum up enthusiasm,” one last fan said.
Season 4 has not yet been officially renewed by ABC, but it seems as if fans aren’t too keen on it.
Jeopardy! Masters, Season 3, now streaming on Hulu