• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, May 22, 2024

The latest plan to extend the “Jeopardy!” brand beyond the confines of its beloved “mothership” is a new spinoff coming exclusively to Amazon Prime Video.

Announced last week at Amazon’s first-ever Upfront, the new show will focus on one over-arching category, popular culture -- hence the title “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” (imagined in the photo above).

In announcing the new quiz show, Amazon and Sony Pictures Television, long-time producer of Jeopardy!,” noted that the deal represents the first time that a “Jeopardy!”-branded show has ever been earmarked exclusively for streaming.

Described in a press release as a “pop culture Olympics for the mind,” details such as the show’s premiere date, length of episodes, and the host of the show were not disclosed.

Since the show was announced at Amazon’s Upfront last Tuesday (May 14) in New York, “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” -- and indeed any such quiz show -- would seem to be tailor-made for ad-supported streaming.

As it happens, Amazon has another new game show, “The 1% Club,” hosted by Patton Oswalt, scheduled to premiere June 3. 

It will be the first American version of the show, which has already been a hit around the world, Amazon said.

“Pop Culture Jeopardy!” and “The 1% Club” were just two of the new-content announcements Amazon made at its first-ever Upfront.

While the announcements included some scripted content, sports programming was given more attention in the news releases that emanated from the Upfront.

The streaming service announced at least five new sports-related documentaries, including “Federer: Twelve Final Days,” covering the last days of the tennis legend's career before his retirement in 2002. The doc premieres June 20.

The other four are an untitled doc tracing the history of the long-running and hugely popular “Madden NFL” video game, a documentary titled “Game 7” that chronicles that most memorable seventh games in sports history; “ChiefsAholic: A Wolf in Chiefs Clothing,” about a Chiefs superfan who was revealed to a serial bank robber, and an untitled documentary about the Earnhart NASCAR racing family.

On that subject, Amazon said it has obtained exclusive rights to five NASCAR Cup Series Races in 2025 -- Amazon’s first-ever NASCAR series -- starting with the Coca-Cola 600 next May from Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Amazon also took up the opportunity at its Upfront to announce its exclusive package of 12 “Thursday Night Football” NFL games next season, all featuring divisional rivals, starting September 12 with the Bills-Dolphins.

The upcoming third season of Amazon’s expanding encroachment on the traditional broadcast and cable grip on NFL games also includes one “Black Friday Football” game next November 29 featuring the defending Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, vs. the Raiders.

Among the scripted projects coming to Amazon are: “Noir,” a live-action series based on the Marvel comic “Spider-Man Noir” and starring Nicolas Cage; another live-action series derived from the “Tomb Raider” video-game series: and a “Legally Blonde” prequel series, titled “Elle,” about the pre-college life of the teenage Elle Wood, the character played by Reese Witherspoon in the two “Legally Blonde” movies.