Early last month, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers wisely emerged for a media tour aimed at goosing the ratings for his two-week stint as guest host of Jeopardy! If it helped, it didn’t help enough.
Via Sports Business Journal, Rodgers’ ratings during his two-week run trail those generated by Jeopardy! master contestant Ken Jennings and executive producer Mike Richards. Jennings, in a four-week run, averaged more than 10 million viewers per show for three of his six weeks, and between 9.75 million and 9.9 million for the other three. Richards generated 9.895 million viewers for one of his two weeks, and 9.729 million for the other.
Rodgers attracted 9.193 million viewers per show for his first week and 9.081 million viewers per show for his second week.
Katie Couric’s first week drew more viewers than Rodgers’ second week. Others -- Dr. Oz, Bill Whitaker, and Anderson Cooper -- landed at 8.51 million viewers per show and lower. The lowest week came from Cooper; for April 26 through April 30, Cooper drew an average of 7.75 million viewers.
Also per SBJ, a CivicScience study published this week shows that 22 percent of Jeopardy! fans want Jennings to be the permanent host, and that 16 percent want Rodgers. The other options are “significantly behind.”
Rodgers has made no secret of his desire to secure the job. The numbers don’t favor him. And, to the extent that the powers-that-be at Jeopardy! are watching his ongoing squabble with Green Bay management, they may not want to find themselves eventually in a similar mess.
Thus, it currently appears that the question that goes with Aaron Rodgers as the successor to Alex Trebek quite likely will be be What is no?