Brandon Blackwell

Brandon Blackwell was born in Queens, New York, where he goofed off in school for most of his childhood and early teen years yet spent all his spare time reading and learning anyway. He also grew up watching game shows, so it wasn’t long before he decided to have a crack at it himself, culminating with a win on “Million Second Quiz” worth more than a third of $1 million. Blackwell had appeared on three different quiz shows and won almost $400,000 by the time he turned 20.

In 2014, Blackwell decided to start quizzing seriously and joined the American circuit. In 2016, he made his debut internationally at the Quiz Olympiad in Athens and won two medals, including a gold in the world speedquizzing discipline.

In 2017, Blackwell left the American trivia scene for good to train in the UK, where he played for some of the top quiz clubs in the world. In addition to two fourth-place finishes in the British Quizzing Championship pairs competition, he has won multiple London Open medals and a President’s Cup in the Quiz League of London. Perhaps most notoriously, Blackwell was a champion on and is one of the highest-scoring players of all-time on “University Challenge,” a well-known British quiz show that many say “makes ‘Jeopardy!’ look like a walk in the park.”

Blackwell is still a regular in high-level quiz competitions outside the U.S., finishing second overall in the Under-30 World Quizzing Championships in 2020 and 38th overall in the World Quizzing Championships in 2021. He currently plays for one of the highest-ranked quiz teams in the world – a team whose star player is none other than fellow Chaser Victoria Groce.