James Holzhauer’s love of sports is well known. Prior to making over $1.5 million on Jeopardy!, he made his living betting on sports in Las Vegas, where he’s a massive fan of the city’s NHL team, the Golden Knights.
He also is a Cubs fan, having grown up in Naperville, Illinois, and before he took his analytical brain to the world of sports betting he had a dream of working for an MLB team. The dominant Jeopardy! champion recently responded to a column in the Washington Post that he was a “menace” to the show by saying his original plan was to work in an MLB front office and ruin baseball, but had to settle for ruining Jeopardy!.
I always dreamed of working in an MLB front office and ruining baseball, but I have to settle for ruining @Jeopardy instead. https://t.co/CsATDjAxUU
— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) April 30, 2019
Holzhauer has been on quite the media tour of late, speaking with all manner of outlets about his streak and to let people know more about the man crushing Jeopardy! opponents to dust, and recently told The Athletic’s Marc Craig about his baseball dream. Out of college he applied for entry level front office jobs in the past to no avail.
“I applied for a number of entry-level positions with teams, but never got anywhere,” Holzhauer said. “I’m not sure if this is the case now, but when I was fresh out of college, MLB teams were not paying their entry-level employees a living wage. I’ve thought about going to the Winter Meetings, but I feel that my lack of networking experience would be a serious drawback.”
He went on to explain that his love of math and analytics is what drew him to baseball and, ultimately, sports betting, which he loves due to the freedom it gives him. As for whether the baseball dream is still alive, he says he’d have to consider it if an opportunity were to come his way, but felt he’d be best off as a consultant, questioning if his interpersonal skills were good enough to be a GM.
On Thursday, Holzhauer cruised to his 21st Jeopardy! win, bringing in more than $80,000 and, per usual, getting all three Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy correct. The win gave him the second longest win streak in the show’s history and brought his overall total to $1,608,627, which is $800,000 behind Ken Jennings’ total from his 74-game streak.
