Over the years, NTN has swung between head-to-head competitions and team averages over a select number of games. In the mid 1990's, direct clashes took the nod in an NCAA-like Showdown tourney where locations qualified during a four-week period for a place in the brackets. Single elimination caused many victories and defeats to hang on a single question, many of which will be emblazoned in the losing teams’ minds forever. For example, Catbirds will never forget the Cardinal Richelieu wing of the Louvre, or the London location of Amnesty International.
In 1997, NTN embarked on a comprehensive tournament program involving not only Showdown, but every other premium game. For the better part of a year, a team who wanted to try its hand at being Spotlight, Sports IQ, Playback, or even Glory Daze champs could be in constant tournament play for months on end, especially because NTN switched to the kinder, gentler average method of computing winners. Because as with current league play, the system allowed a certain number of bad scores to be dropped, a team could have an off night while remaining in competition. NTN capped the tournament season with a grueling sequence nicknamed the Iron Man, which required players to compete in each of the premium games within a single week to crown an overall winner. This past year NTN inexplicably abandoned tournaments in the other premiums in order to concentrate on Showdown and individual player efforts such as Million Dollar Match.
The current structure combines rewards both for consistent play over time and single night brilliance. Teams qualified by doing well in the seasonal league play, with the top eight teams in each league advancing to the field. NTN used Spring League rankings to determine seedings within the 32-location brackets. Now the remaining locations can focus their attention on beating a single target rather than taking on all Showdown teams at the same time.
While no one has conducted any polls to determine whether players prefer head-to-head challenges versus team averages, many missed the bracket structure during the years when NTN exclusively relied on the second approach. For this reason, the McCarthy Cup survived as an alternative Showdown tournament. In 1998, the Crimson Grille in Cambridge, MA ended up in 33rd place during the qualification period when only the top 32 teams would be included in the field. Enterprising player FENWAY decided to see what would happen if the Showdown tournament used the NCAA 64- team structure instead. Run mostly through the NTN discussion group BadBart, the competition has experimented over the years with rules limiting use of reference materials and computers, producing winners in Texas, Las Vegas, and most recently Washington, D.C., where Grand Slam holds the title.
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