Throwback Thursday: Ken Jennings Surpasses Brad Rutter's All-Time Money Total (2004)
July 20th, 2004: The day Ken and Brad's rivalry "officially" began.
The Rivalry Begins
A week before his 35th game in 2004, Ken Jennings surpassed the $1,000,000 mark in regular play, an unprecedented feat at the time. In doing so, he became only the second player in Jeopardy! history to earn a million dollars in all-time cash winnings. As the 5-day limit was no longer applicable, Ken had the privilege to keep winning constantly, unlike Brad Rutter, the all-time cash winnings earner.
Brad Rutter’s Career
Despite his obviously high-ranking status even at this time, Brad wasn’t really considered the strongest Jeopardy! player in the show’s history, much less to someone like Ken. The way he climbed the money ladder was unique in that he relied mostly on tournaments to get there. When he competed in his original run, the 5-day limit was still in tact. He won all 5 of his games before being retired as an undefeated champion, earning $55,102. This translates to $110,204 in today’s values.
For the 2001 Tournament of Champions, Brad Rutter was ranked 9th for the season in regular winnings. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar to win the tournament. Despite this, he faced off against the top seed in the quarterfinals, Doug Lach (5x, $85,400). Not only did he win the match, it was a complete blowout over Doug Lach and Bob Fleenor. He also went on to win his semifinal match against Mark Eckard and Larry Cloud to make the finals against Tad Carithers and Rick Knutsen.
The finals were very valiant and close for all three players, but as a result of taking the lead at the end of the second game in the two-day total point affair and being the only one to answer Final Jeopardy! correctly, Brad Rutter won the tournament and took the top prize of $100,000. It would be the final Tournament of Champions with a $100,000 top prize before it was bumped up to $250,000 in 2003.
With Brad Rutter undefeated by this point, he had $155,102 in all-time winnings. In the Throwback Thursday article from last week, I discussed how he became the first millionaire in the show’s history. Following his TOC win, he went on to survive the semifinals against Leslie Frates and India Cooper in the 2002 Million Dollar Masters, and then defeated Eric Newhouse in the finals by $1 to earn the $1,000,000 top prize. His all-time winnings increased from $155,102 to an incredible $1,155,102, far surpassing the previous all-time winnings by Bruce Seymour, who had earned $305,989 in total.
Ken Jennings Goes For His 35th Win
Going into his 35th game against challengers Christopher Mansel and Susan Keller, Ken had $1,135,460 in his bank. With a deficit of less than $20,000, he had a big chance of surpassing Brad Rutter’s all-time score and was fully expected to. Ken started by dominating the first round, even without the help of the Daily Double. It was looking like he was going to coast to another victory.
Ken Jennings had the privilege of finding both Daily Doubles in the Double Jeopardy! round and answering them, wagering $3,000 on the first one for a total of $25,000 and $7,200 on the second one for a total of $35,000. He fully dominated the game, accumulating $40,600 before Final Jeopardy!, well beyond the total needed to surpass Brad Rutter’s all-time total at the time.
The Final Jeopardy! category was On The Map and the clue was: “In area it’s the largest African country through which the Greenwich meridian passes.” Algeria was the correct answer, but all three players answered incorrectly. Ken dropped $11,400 to win with $29,200, giving him a 35-day total of $1,164,660… surpassing Brad Rutter’s all time total of $1,155,102, purely in regular gameplay.
By this point in Jeopardy! history, it was safe to say he was the greatest of all time. However, this win was so significant that it began a quiet rivalry between him and Brad Rutter. By this point, they had not faced off and it was unclear how well they’d fare against each other. Given Ken’s experience by this point though, he was very heavily favored.
Thank you so much for reading. If you liked this article, do feel free to encompass the privilege of subscribing to my publication. I’ll be doing a lot more paid articles by the time season 39 ends, and I’ll be talking about the 2023 Tournament of Champions, Second Chance Competition, Champions Wildcard, and perhaps other bonus perks as well. Feel free to read through my older articles to get a taste of Jeopardy! history and culture as well~