The format used in the NTAE is unique among all other national tournaments, and is based on the format used for the Commissioner's Academic Challenge, which is Florida's quizbowl state tournament for school districts. This is also the tournament used to select the team that represents Florida at the NTAE.
While most tournaments involve two teams playing in a head-to-head format, the NTAE involves matches of between four and six teams playing against each other in the same competition room. Each team starts with 100 points.
Each match is divided into three untimed periods. The first period consists of 20 questions, each worth five points. The second period consists of 20 questions, each worth ten points, and the final round consists of 25 questions, each worth fifteen points. Each question has a one-minute time limit in which teams may answer. Teams answering incorrectly are penalized the point value of the question. A team is eliminated from competition if their point total reaches zero, but this a very rare occurrence.
At the end of each period, each team participates in a written team question which has a variable time limit, and a variable number of questions. The written team question after each of the three periods is worth (respectively) a maximum of ten, twenty, and thirty points. There are no penalties for incorrect answers in this phase of the competition. These written questions are non-competitive, and each team may earn the maximum number of points.
At the end of each match, teams are ranked according to their point totals. A tie-breaker occurs only if a tie results among teams that will be advancing to a future match.
Aside from the written team questions, there are no bonus questions which are prevalent in most other quizbowl formats. There is also the absence of "rebounding" a missed question. That is, once a question is attempted, whether the answer given is correct or incorrect, the question ends, and no other team is given the opportunity to answer.
Adding to the challenge, each team is permitted only one button to indicate they are ready to answer, and to lock out other teams from responding (aka "buzzer"). Most other formats allow each player to have their own buzzer.
The questions used in the NTAE are wholly unique among national tournaments. Unlike most other tournaments there are multiple choice and matching questions, some of which can be deceptively difficult. There are also "fill-in-the-blank style questions," as well as free response questions (standard to high school quizbowl).
While topics range across the academic canon, there is an overall de-emphasis of pop culture questions, and a marked increase in the number of mathematics questions (teams are provided calculators). Foreign language is also utilized often, with teams usually choosing from amongst French or Spanish questions (in the past, German and Latin were options, but these have been discontinued).
There are also visual questions displayed on a television monitor, and audio questions played from recordings. While these two question formats can be used for any question category, audio questions are most often used for music and foreign language questions, while video questions are most often used for art questions.
The tournament is usually held during the second or third week of June, starting on a Sunday, and ending on a Tuesday. The tournament is usually held at the convention center of the Contemporary Resort Hotel at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
Teams are randomly assigned to a first round match (historically, each first round match has either four or five teams in each competition room). Winning teams automatically advance to the semifinals. Teams not winning in the first round are randomly assigned to a consolation match, and compete on Monday. Winners of each consolation match also advance to the semifinals.
There are usually three semifinal matches played on Tuesday morning. The top two teams from each semifinal advance to the championship round, held on Tuesday afternoon.
Coaches are not permitted to challenge the game officials, though players are permitted to do so. Each match generally has at least one judge who is a specialist in each academic area.
Another unique fixture of this tournament are the resources committed by corporate and government sponsorship. Since its inception, the tournament has been sponsored by the school systems of the Florida counties of Pinellas and Polk, with the Florida Department of Education joining in the tournament's third year. Herff Jones has also been sponsors since the first year of the tournament. Other past corporate sponsors have included Publix Supermarkets and Disney.
From 1992 to 2008, Panasonic was the title sponsor of the event. The Pepsi Bottling Group was also a longtime sponsor.
This corporate sponsorship allows for one of the largest prize packages in high school quizbowl. The top six teams each earn trophies, which are sent to the governors of the respective states or territories. The members of each of the top three teams earn scholarships ($2000, $1000, and $500 per team member, respectively), and earn championship rings. An "all-tournament" team is selected based on geography and individual performance in the first round of competition. These players earn medals and scholarship money.
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