Quiz bowls

Untitled document Quizbowl (also known as Quiz bowl, Scholastic Bowl, Brain Bowl, Academic Team, Academic Varsity Bowl, Academic Challenge, Scholar Quiz Bowl, Academic Quiz Team, Academic Bowl, It's Academic, Knowledge Bowl, College Bowl, High School Bowl, or Whiz Quiz) is a family of games of questions and answers on all topics of human knowledge, commonly played in high school and college. The game is played with a lockout buzzer system between some number of teams, most commonly two teams of four players each. A moderator reads questions to the teams, whose players endeavor to buzz in first with the correct answer, scoring points for their team.

The quizbowl format is found in high schools and universities in the U.S., as well as in elementary, middle, and junior high schools; the Canadian equivalent is competition geared toward Reach for the Top, among high schools, whereas Canadian universities are beginning to participate in U.S. quiz bowl leagues.
The largest current trivia contest is held in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's college radio station WWSP 89.9 FM. This is a college station with 11,500 watts of power and about a 65 mile (105 km) radius, and the contest serves as a fund raiser for the station. The contest is open to anyone, and it is played in April of each year spanning 54 hours over a weekend with eight questions each hour. There are usually 500 teams ranging from 1 to 50 players. The top ten teams are awarded trophies.
The University of Colorado Trivia Bowl was a student contestant featuring a single-elimination tournament based on the GE College Bowl. Many of the best trivia players in America trace participation through this tournament including many Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? contestants.

Quiz Bowl is generally played at tournaments, though high schools will also commonly play single matches against local schools, or schools within an athletic conference. Many schools hold on-campus tournaments (intramurals) where anyone can play. Some schools have programs which practice weekly (or more) during the school year. These programs are generally open to all students. They often include in their names "College Bowl," "Academic Competition," or "Quiz Bowl." They send teams to invitational tournaments sponsored by other schools or organizations.
For Quiz Bowl, a tournament is a gathering of teams who engage each other in several rounds of games. A tournament winner is determined using some criteria (win-loss record, playoff record, etc....). There are several classes of tournaments, which may use one of several formats.
Intramural tournaments invite students on a given campus to form teams and play. They are often called campus tournaments. On occasion, such tournaments may be open to teams of graduate students, and/or campus staff.
Invitational tournaments involve teams from various schools. They are run by the Quiz Bowl team/program at a given school. Invitations are sometimes sent to individual programs. However, most tournaments give out open invitations for any school to accept.