Whoops! ESPN Jeopardy! contestant Jeremy Schaap thought he was going to be a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy! not the news sports question spinoff. He even studied all the wrong questions for the show, he admitted to Jeopardy!‘s Sam Buttrey.

Former player and fan-favorite Buttrey interviewed the ESPN Jeopardy! contestants as he cooked up hot dogs for them before their games. The tailgate was posted to Jeopardy!‘s social media pages. Here’s what Schaap spent his time studying.

“How did you prepare for ESPN Jeopardy!?” Buttrey asked Schaap.

“Well, I thought I was doing regular Celebrity Jeopardy!,” Schaap said with a laugh. “So, I was mostly studying Shakespeare, and it probably won’t come up.”

“Seems unlikely,” Buttrey said.

ESPN Jeopardy! features those who work in the sports world as well as famous sports fans. They all answer sports-related questions, so Shakespeare will probably not come up.

The contestants include Schaap, Christine Williamson, Kimberley Martin, MJ Acosta-Ruiz, Peter Schrage, Omar Raja, Jon Hamm, Keegan-Michael Key, Adam Pally, Hannah Storm, Jay Harris, Amina Smith, Kyle Brandt, Jamie Erdahl, Manti Te’o, Kevin Negandhi, Domonique Foxworth, and Madelyn Burke.

The other contestants in the video said that they did not want a hot dog from Buttrey, with Erdahl saying they weren’t a breakfast food.

Some of them wanted bragging rights over Kyle Brandt and did their research on him before playing. When Buttrey asked the contestants what sports Jeopardy! was like, there was a mix of different answers — football, competitive cheerleading, and golf.

ESPN host Williamson said that she hopes pop culture sports-related questions would be what she is best at, so she hopes there are a lot of them. “I’m way too much online and in people’s business,” she said. Maybe she can try her luck at Pop Culture Jeopardy!.

Joe Buck hosts the spinoff. He is no stranger to the Jeopardy! stage as he previously hosted a week of the game show in 2021 after Alex Trebek‘s death.

All ten episodes of the spinoff dropped on streaming on July 31, so be sure to tune in to find out who wins.

ESPN Jeopardy!, all episodes, now streaming, Disney+, Hulu, and the ESPN app

Jeopardy!, Season 43, September 2026, weekdays, check local listings