FWIW, back in '09 my appearance was in early June, and I got paid in mid-November, so a 5 month wait. The envelope also contained my photo with Trebek.
Oh, and they’ll take California state income taxes out of the check, if that makes any difference in income planning.
One interesting thing I didn’t know until taping the show myself.
There’s a reason that nobody ever loses in the Final Jeopardy round because they failed to put their response in the form of a question: right after the final category is revealed, during the commercial break, the contestant coordinators tell the contestants “Write in WHO IS now” or “Write in WHAT IS now.”
So, all of us have the proper question phrasing written in before we ever see the final answer. The Jeopardy staff can and do penalize us for failing to use question form during the oral rounds, but they DON’T ever want that to happen in Final Jeopardy.
Just discovering this thread, and thought I’d add one thing to the discussion: the champ right before the tournaments aired didn’t leave and come back at all. Alex just makes that comment because they know when the tournaments are going to be broadcast. That “month” the champ had to wait was really ten minutes long, and he was being hustled back to the green room to change shirts for the next game. The magic of TV time!