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The Scripps National Spelling Bee returns to Washington this week as the nation’s top young spellers compete in a three-day event running from Tuesday through Thursday night. The competition, now in its 98th year, will be held at Constitution Hall, a few blocks from the White House. (The bee began as a Louisville Courier-Journal initiative in 1925 and has previously been canceled during World War II and in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.)
This year’s broadcast and streaming plan is tied to Scripps-owned channels and platforms, according to the guide. Tuesday’s preliminary rounds will stream on Scripps Sports Network and spellingbee.com from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. EDT. On Wednesday, quarterfinals will stream on those same platforms from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and semifinals can be watched from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. EDT, with a tape-delayed semifinals broadcast on ION from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Finals air on Thursday on ION from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., and the semifinals and finals are also set to air or stream across additional Scripps-owned channels and services including ION Plus, Bounce, Grit, Laff, The Spot, Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More, Scripps News and Scripps Sports Network.
The guide also lays out the eligibility and format of the bee. Spellers qualify by advancing through regional bees hosted by sponsors nationwide, and to compete they must not have advanced beyond the eighth grade and must be no older than 15. The competition includes two preliminary rounds, with one spelling round and one multiple-choice vocabulary round drawn from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary list provided in advance.
After the preliminary rounds, contestants sit for a written spelling and vocabulary test, with the top 100 or so finishers advancing to the quarterfinals. Quarterfinals and semifinals use spoken questions, with spellers eliminated at the microphone through oral spelling or vocabulary answers. Roughly a dozen spellers advance to the finals, and when only two remain, Scripps can use a lightning-round tiebreaker described as a “spell-off” to determine the champion.
Among the competitors, this year’s field includes 247 spellers representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, three U.S. territories and five other countries: The Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. The guide identifies Sarv Dharavane of Dunwoody, Georgia, as the top returning finisher from 2025, noting that he finished third last year as an 11-year-old fifth-grader and has two years of eligibility left even if he does not win this year.
The guide also lists additional potential contenders, including Shrey Parikh, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Rancho Cucamonga, California, who finished third in 2024 and who has won multiple spelling-bee events in the past year, and Oliver Halkett, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Los Angeles who finished tied for seventh last year. It also cites Esha Marupudi, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Chandler, Arizona, who tied for seventh last year.
For viewers wondering what is at stake, the guide describes prize payouts for the champion and finalists. The winner receives a custom trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes, with first place at $52,500 in cash plus reference works from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, a custom trophy and commemorative medal, and $1,000 in flight credits from Delta Air Lines. Second place is $25,000, third is $15,000, fourth is $10,000, fifth is $5,000, sixth is $2,500, and all other finalists receive $2,000.
The television host for the bee this year is Mina Kimes, an ESPN NFL analyst and the recent “Celebrity Jeopardy!” champion, which the guide says has joined the competition as its television host. Ben Nuckols, who has covered the spelling bee since 2012, contributed the guide.