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The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 five-day finals concluded on February 13, with Neilesh Vinjamuri emerging as the season's champion. Meanwhile, finalists Adriana Harmeyer and Isaac Hirsch finished as the tournament's runners-up.
After the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 finale, a fan posted a question on the subreddit r/Jeopardy on February 20, asking about the said/unsaid rules of sportsmanship as a contestant. They listed "not shaking hands" as one of their indicators of bad sportsmanship.
Isaac responded to a user in the comments, noting that when contestants are onstage, they have many other things on their minds besides ensuring they shake hands with their fellow competitors after each game.
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"I see people mad online that there weren’t postgame handshakes after every game— unfortunately, people are thinking about lots of other things onstage than making sure to shake the hands of their opponents, and they may even do so off camera!" he wrote.
Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 runner-up Isaac Hirsch
After Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 concluded on February 13, a lot of fans posted their reaction and questions under the subreddit r/Jeopardy. One of the newer fans, user u/thespiceraja, posted a question on the subreddit asking the community what according to them were the "said/unsaid rules of sportsmanship as a contestant."
Under their question, the Reddit user mentioned that as a recent fan of the game show, who loves to see how contestants interact on the show, felt that "loud celebration, taunting, interjecting to Ken, not shaking hands, or even doing huge wagers" were indicators of bad sportsmanship.
Meanwhile, according to them, clapping after correct daily doubles, shaking hands immediately after the final, and "using brevity when talking" seemed to be the indicators of good sportsmanship.
Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 runner-up Isaac Hirsch responded to a user, noting that the internet’s hyperfocus on sportsmanship felt excessive, especially since most of the expectations were unwritten rules and relatively recent inventions.
"I think the Internet’s hyperfocus on sportsmanship is a little much right now because all of these rules are totally unwritten and mostly recent inventions," he wrote.
Isaac added that he noticed that a lot of people were mad online about the simple fact that there weren’t "postgame handshakes after every game."
To them, he explained that when the contestants are on the stage, filming for an episode, they are often thinking about lots of other things than making sure that they shook hands with their opponents. However, he added that some of the contestants do shake hands off camera.
The Tournament of Champions 2025 runner-up further emphasized that contestants on the show are just regular people without any media training. He noted that they are simply doing their best to avoid embarrassing themselves in front of millions of viewers and that "no one is deliberately being unsportsmanlike."
"I think people need to realize that all three contestants are just regular people with no media training who are trying to not poop themselves onstage, and (except in maybe rare cases) no one is deliberately being unsportsmanlike," he concluded.
The 2021 runner-up Jennifer Quail also commented on the Reddit question post noting that no contestant thinks about shaking hands that much. She emphasized that the show might discourage it because the contestant podiums are spaced out and if they wished to shake hands then they would have to get off their riser, which she believed would be a "tripping hazard."
"If anything the show might discourage it because especially with the spaced-out podiums you have to get off your riser and that's one more tripping hazard. I've had games I was NOT to move until they lowered it because it was a big step down," she wrote.
Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 episodes are available to watch on Hulu.
