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For practically 100 years, the Scripps Nationwide Spelling Bee has showcased the largest phrases from the youngest lexicologists. The inaugural champion, 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Louisville, accurately spelled “gladiolus” to assert a prize of $500 on the Smithsonian Museum of Pure Historical past.
The phrases have solely gotten more durable, the stress higher and the nationwide highlight bigger.
Of 231 opponents, a few dozen finalists have outmaneuvered their option to the finals, which start at 8 p.m. Japanese time on Thursday on the Ion and Bounce networks and may run till about 10 p.m. The finals cap practically every week of competitors on the Nationwide Harbor, a resort and waterfront growth in Maryland.
Many People grew conversant in the bee from its nationwide broadcast on ESPN, the place it expanded in reputation, viewership and popular culture over the previous few a long time. However that modified final yr when the bee moved to Ion, a Scripps subsidiary, within the hopes of discovering viewers past paid TV subscribers.
In response to the bee, that guess labored: Viewership of the finals in 2022 was up 147 p.c yr over yr and was seen by 7.5 million viewers — the biggest tv viewers since 2015.
The New York Instances, which has coated spelling bees for nearly 150 years, will proceed that custom Thursday evening, reporting dwell on the spellers’ tales and the phrases they face. Definitions will come from the competition’s dictionary companion, Merriam-Webster. The champion will take dwelling greater than $50,000 in money and a number of reference works like a duplicate of the 1768 Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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