Jeopardy! boss says he and LeVar Burton have "been speaking for a very long time" -- he's the only guest-host to lobby for the job

USA Today

"I think he was the first person to reach out to me after Alex passed away" in November, "so this is not a new conversation," Jeopardy! executive producer Mike Richards tells USA Today in discussing Burton as guest-host. In contrast to his predecessors, who guest-hosted for two or more weeks, Burton will get a one-week tryout: the week of July 26-30. Richards also points out that Burton was the only guest-host to lobby for the job. After subsequent conversations, Richards says, "it came down to LeVar ... speaking to his passion and really believing that he would be a great fit to be a guest host, and as we came down to the final group we were excited to get it all to work together. This is not an easy process." Richards adds: "It's not a matter of picking up the phone and people clearing their calendars, and then just showing up. There's a lot that goes into these bookings. It was much more about the conversations that we had than really him lobbying, because really, no one else has lobbied. It's really been a kind of a a very quiet path to cerebral conversations and then us making decisions."