Scripps National Spelling Bee to combat ties with a speed round "Spell-Off"

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Scripps is taking action after an unprecedented eight-way tie when the Spelling Bee was last held in 2019. "Historically, the competition ends when a speller spells correctly in a one-person, one-word round and is declared the champion," the Scripps National Spelling Bee announced in a press release. "However, if the competition reaches its concluding minutes and the Bee has not named one speller the champion and is not about to enter a one-person, one-word round, a spell-off will be activated to declare a winner. Each speller remaining in the competition will have 90 seconds to spell as many words as they can from a predetermined spell-off list of words. After all spellers remaining in the competition have competed in the spell-off, the speller who spelled the most words correctly will be declared champion."