Many Jeopardy! Masters fans agree that the tournament lacked one thing this year — James Holzhauer. The season’s ratings took a nose dive compared to the last two when Holzhauer appeared on both.
The 2025 tournament feaured 2024 Masters champion Victoria Groce, returning finalist Yogesh Raut, 2025 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Neilesh Vinjamuri, TOC finalists Adriana Harmeyer and Isaac Hirsch, 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament champion Matt Amodio, JIT finalists Roger Craig and Juveria Zaheer, and one of the biggest Jeopardy! winners of all-time Brad Rutter, who hadn’t been on the Alex Trebek stage since 2020.
Holzhauer won Season 1, so he was invited back for Season 2. He was also in the top three on Season 2, so he was asked back for Season 3 but declined. During the April Live Jeopardy! Tour, the game show‘s bosses Michael Davies and Sarah Whitcomb-Foss shared that he was invited back, but said he was going to sit this one out.
“As always, our top three Masters are guaranteed an invitation to the next Masters,” Whitcomb-Foss said. “But, that might leave you wondering, there is another Master — our third-place finisher James Holzhauer. As we mentioned, it is an invitational tournament. We absolutely did extend the invitation to James, and he decided for this year, he was not going to compete.”
“Absolutely his right,” Davies said. “It’s an invitational. We invite the people we want to invite. We extended it to nine people this year to build more equity. We completely respect James’ decision.”
Holzhauer’s absence might have been a factor in the drastic ratings decline. 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.
Many fans said that the time change from 8pm to 9pm could have been a factor as well as the show being too long (30 minutes for the syndicated version vs. one hour for the tournament).
But, some Reddit users said that Holzhauer’s presence would have made the game more exciting. “If they do this again, I’d imagine they’ll pay extra for James to appear beyond the normal award. Which I’d assume is what he was (and 100% should’ve been) holding out for this year. He’s a TV star with an agent, no real reason for him to not do like the celebs do for Celebrity Jeopardy! and negotiate a salary, with the possibility he’d earn even more if he won,” one fan said.
“I do think James coming back would help it a lot, but that’s entirely his call and he may be defaulted to JIT,” wrote another.
“James and Victoria are just so much better than the other players that the inevitability of their victories just seems boring,” a third said.
“I really hope James comes back next year, but Masters is my favorite ‘post-season’ event by far and I can’t wait for next year!” a fan on another thread commented.
“This season would have been better if James was a part of it. He’s always bring the fun,” one fan added.
“James kicked everyone’s butts in Season 1,” another wrote.
“Bring back James Holzhauer!” one last fan said.
Jeopardy! Masters, Season 3, now streaming on Hulu