Using Matt Carberry's data to look at the geography of the contestant pool and how the pandemic and Anytime Test (and probably just chaos) have shaped it
Very selfishly, I was hoping to see how the Canadian contestants factored in, COVID border closure time excepted, even if all lumped together (Jeopardy airs on one oddball national cable network and several unrelated regional broadcast affiliates, so it’s an odd mix).
I don't have an apples-to-apples population size for the Canadian markets to directly compare to the US, but looking at Canada as a whole seems worthwhile. Treating Canada the same way as a single US market results in an overall ratio of 0.23, with 0.23 before the pandemic's start and 0.22 after. There was a low of 0.08 in season 37, but a high of 0.44 for season 39.
Comparing to each other internally using population, Toronto always outpaces Canada as a whole. Vancouver also does (S37 excepted) but usually not by as much. Ottawa and Calgary outpace the country as a whole across the time period, but have both had a post-pandemic falloff with only one contestant each since. Montreal and Edmonton are underrepresented in the dataset, but all of their contestants (three each) have been on this side of the border reopening. Montreal's three contestants in S39 is a little off the chart if you consider that the English language market is more on the scale of Winnipeg.
Thanks for this! I think it would be nearly impossible to do market comparison so national makes the most sense. Surprised at the jump for S39, but I suspect that was likely a conscious decision to invite people who couldn’t come during the border closures. I was a week shy of my 18 month window when I got the call!
Colleges tournaments are a pretty small sample of contestants, so I’m not sure there would be anything meaningful about individual schools, but I could see there being something around student body size and some measure of school affluence.
Very selfishly, I was hoping to see how the Canadian contestants factored in, COVID border closure time excepted, even if all lumped together (Jeopardy airs on one oddball national cable network and several unrelated regional broadcast affiliates, so it’s an odd mix).
I don't have an apples-to-apples population size for the Canadian markets to directly compare to the US, but looking at Canada as a whole seems worthwhile. Treating Canada the same way as a single US market results in an overall ratio of 0.23, with 0.23 before the pandemic's start and 0.22 after. There was a low of 0.08 in season 37, but a high of 0.44 for season 39.
Comparing to each other internally using population, Toronto always outpaces Canada as a whole. Vancouver also does (S37 excepted) but usually not by as much. Ottawa and Calgary outpace the country as a whole across the time period, but have both had a post-pandemic falloff with only one contestant each since. Montreal and Edmonton are underrepresented in the dataset, but all of their contestants (three each) have been on this side of the border reopening. Montreal's three contestants in S39 is a little off the chart if you consider that the English language market is more on the scale of Winnipeg.
Thanks for this! I think it would be nearly impossible to do market comparison so national makes the most sense. Surprised at the jump for S39, but I suspect that was likely a conscious decision to invite people who couldn’t come during the border closures. I was a week shy of my 18 month window when I got the call!
Would love to see one on college contestants by school at some point.
Colleges tournaments are a pretty small sample of contestants, so I’m not sure there would be anything meaningful about individual schools, but I could see there being something around student body size and some measure of school affluence.