Quizbusters (WNAB)
Quizbusters was a quizbowl show that aired on WNAB-58 in Nashville, Tennessee. The show premiered in 2008. The winner received $5000, runner-up received $4000, semifinalists $2000, and round-of-sixteen teams $500. Eventually, winning amounts decreased (winner: $4000, runner-up: $3000, 3rd and 4th: $2500, top 8: $2000) as Westfield Insurance's grants decreased. It continually drew the most (and the most regular) participation of any tournament in Tennessee after the large Vanderbilt ABC tournaments of the past. The final iteration of the tournament was held in 2016.
Format
2008-09
The season consisted of 13 regular season games. In the regular season, each game consisted of three rounds. The first and second rounds included 10 point tossups. The third round was the lightning round, where "the game can turn upside-down," because each team has two minutes to answer up to 20 questions in a category for 20 points each. As teams are assigned the categories, this has the effect of potentially screwing a team that gets stuck with a category for which they have little knowledge.
The top 8 teams advance to the tournament. In the tournament, the format changed slightly. The second-round tossups are worth 20 points, and the lightning round questions are worth only 10 points. Additionally, teams can now select from a choice of three categories from vague descriptions, with the lower-scoring team picking first.
During this season (with Questions Galore as the provider), some questions have been shown to come from the same packets as Wheaton North F/S tournament questions (which previously used Questions Galore).
2009-2011
The tournament format from the second half of the first season became permanent. Also, the second round consisted of two alphabet rounds where all the answers began with the same letter. Finally, the higher scoring team picked first in the lightning round, rather than the lower scoring team, but the lower scoring team still played first.
2011-2016
The first round of 10 tossups was still 10 points, the second round included 10 20-point tossups, and the lightning round was category, not letter-, based. The tossups in the first and second rounds were from an active NAQT IS-A set.
Question sources
| Season | Provider |
|---|---|
| 2008-09 | Questions Galore |
| 2009-10 | Bryce Avery |
| 2010-11 | Questions Galore |
| 2011-12 | probably modified NAQT |
| 2012-13 | NAQT probably IS-A set "with some local color" |
Sample questions (from the first season)
- "What elderly female American painter..." (Ans: Grandma Moses)
- "What credit card company's website is www.priceless.com?" (Ans: Mastercard)
- "Since 1949, what do all treasurers have in common?" (Ans: They are all female)
- "What tablet is written in three languages..." (Ans: Rosetta Stone)
- "What is the full title of Darwin's book on evolution?" (Ans given: On the Origin of Species, which is not the full title)
Links
Greg Gauthier's liveblog of an episode. [1]