Quiz bowl is a family of quiz-based competitions that test players on a wide variety of academic subjects. Standardized quiz bowl formats are played by lower school, middle school, high school, and university students throughout North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and Africa.
College Bowl is a radio, television, and student quiz show. College Bowl first aired on the NBC Radio Network in 1953 as College Quiz Bowl. It then moved to American television broadcast networks, airing from 1959 to 1963 on CBS and from 1963 to 1970 on NBC. In 1977, the president of College Bowl, Richard Reid, developed it into a non-televised national championship competition on campuses across America through an affiliation with the Association of College Unions International (ACUI), which lasted for 31 years. In 1989, College Bowl introduced a (sponsored) version of College Bowl for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) called Honda Campus All-Star Challenge (HCASC) which is ongoing. In 2007, College Bowl produced a new version and format of the game as an international championship in Africa, called Africa Challenge. The College Bowl Campus Program and National Championship ran until 2008.
Reach for the Top is a Canadian academic quiz competition for high school students. In the past, it has also been a game show nationally broadcast on the CBC. Matches are currently aired online through Reach for the Top's official YouTube channel. Teams qualify for national rounds through several stages of non-televised tournaments held at high schools throughout Canada during the year which are known as Schoolreach.
The National Science Bowl (NSB) is a high school and middle school science knowledge competition, using a quiz bowl format, held in the United States. A buzzer system similar to those seen on popular television game shows is used to signal an answer. The competition has been organized and sponsored by the United States Department of Energy since its inception in 1991.
SmartAsk is a Canadian quiz show which ran for three seasons on CBC Television. The show was taped in front of a live audience, with the players sitting on a tiered set. The SmartAsk tournament was described by Ralph Benmergui, the show's executive producer, on TSN's Off The Record as being "Reach for the Top on acid," although in practice this largely involved crude humour, especially as the show went on and ratings sagged.
The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (PACE) is a United States based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes high school quiz bowl and runs the National Scholastic Championship (NSC), an end-of-year national tournament for high school quiz bowl teams. PACE was founded in 1996 by a group of quiz bowl players and coaches who were dissatisfied with the quality of high school quiz bowl at the time. The NSC has been run in the June of every year since 1998. Beyond running the NSC, PACE offers advice and staff assistance to high schools and colleges who run high school quiz bowl tournaments. PACE does not currently supply questions for regular season tournaments or offer a collegiate competition program, unlike NAQT or Questions Unlimited.
Knowledge Bowl is the name for several interdisciplinary academic quiz bowl-like competitions across the United States and the world. The questions for many Knowledge Bowl competitions are supplied by the Academic Hallmarks company of Durango, Colorado.
The National Tournament of Academic Excellence (NTAE) is a national high school academic competition run by the Florida Department of Education. The tournament resembles the Florida's own Commissioner's Academic Challenge, which is a type of quiz bowl format. The NTAE had been run in June starting in 1988. Sponsorship from Panasonic ended in 2008 and after 2009 the tournament was not held for several years until was it revived again in 2014.
Scholastic Scrimmage is a high school quiz bowl game show, launched in 1975. It airs on WLVT-TV, the PBS affiliate for the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania.
Bible Quiz, also known as Bible Bowl or Bible Quizzing, is a quiz-bowl competition based on Bible memorization and study. The competition takes place between teams, and participants are quizzed on the content of a pre-determined section of the Bible. They are a popular activity in some Protestant churches and organizations, particularly in the United States. The exact rules of the game differ depending on the sponsoring organization.
As Schools Match Wits is a high school quiz show, hosted by Beth Ward, that airs on PBS member station WGBY in Springfield, Massachusetts, and which is produced in association with Westfield State University. As Schools Match Wits is well known throughout Western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut.
Bay Area Quiz Kids is an academic quiz public-access television show for San Francisco Bay Area high schools. From the start in 1999 it has been hosted by Brad Friedman, the Drama Director at San Mateo High School.
The International Bible Contest is a worldwide competition on the Tanakh for middle school and high school Jewish students. It is held annually in Jerusalem, on Yom Ha'atzmaut. Because the event is officially sponsored by the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency, it is attended by the Prime Minister of Israel, Minister of Education and the Chairman of the Jewish Agency.
Schools' Challenge is the national general knowledge competition for schools in the United Kingdom, founded by Colin Galloway in 1978. It uses the same quiz bowl rules as University Challenge, although it is affiliated with neither the game nor the television show. Schools Challenge is divided into Senior and Junior competitions.
YSU Academic Challenge is the Youngstown, Ohio area high school quiz bowl program that airs on ABC station WYTV on Saturday nights and reairs on Sunday nights on MyYTV. Stan Boney, the chief meteorologist at WYTV, is the host of this program that premiered in 2002. In 2008 Academic Challenge changed its appearance but kept its old rules.
MasterMinds is an academic quiz bowl program active in Upstate New York. There are currently four regions with associated leagues: Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. Some games in the Albany and Rochester regions are broadcast on public-access television.
News Channel 3 Knowledge Bowl is a quiz bowl program created by WREG-TV in Memphis, Tennessee. It first aired in 1987 for the 1987–88 school year. The format is similar to a quiz show, in which teams come from 32 high schools around the Mid-South to participate. Contests between schools take place throughout the school year. Knowledge Bowl participants earn prizes depending on their standings.
The Brain Game is a weekly quiz bowl show for high school students that airs on NBC-affiliate WTHR-13 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Originally called Exercise in Knowledge when introduced in 1972, the Brain Game is currently broadcast at 7 pm on Saturdays, and is hosted by WTHR morning meteorologist Chuck Lofton. It is sponsored by Westfield Insurance, which also sponsors four other high school quiz shows. The show is filmed at the WTHR studios on Meridian Street in Indianapolis. The Brain Game has been filmed in HD since 2008.
The National Science and Maths Quiz is an annual science and mathematics content-based national level quiz competition for senior high schools in Ghana. It has been produced by Primetime Limited, an education-interest advertising and public relations agency, since 1993.
The Asia-Pacific Quiz Championships (AQC) is the premier team quiz event in the Asia-Pacific region.
