Every morning, millions of people open Wordle, stare at a blank grid, and spend a few quiet minutes locked in a private battle with the five letters.
There is no host narrating your every move, no studio audience gasping when you waste a guess on a word, and absolutely nobody cheering you on. Just you, the word, and the slightly smug satisfaction of getting it right under three attempts.
However, The New York Times wants to change that by bringing it to NBC primetime. Wordle is becoming a game show, hosted by Today anchor Savannah Guthrie and produced by Jimmy Fallon, with filming starting this summer and a 2027 air date on the cards (via BBC).
So what would the Wordle TV show look like?
Details are still thin, but what we do know is that the show will be described as “fast-paced” and a “great family game.” It will be filmed in Manchester, England, and will replicate Wordle’s signature typeface and color scheme.
For the NYT, this is a first. The company has never partnered with a broadcast network for a primetime entertainment show before. It is also a telling sign of where the company is headed.
Its Games division, which includes Wordle, the Crossword, and Spelling Bee, is one of its most popular products, with users playing over 11 billion puzzles across all NYT games last year alone. Turning Wordle into a TV franchise makes business sense. Whether it makes creative sense is a different question.
I’ve been playing Wordle for years, but this announcement feels like a loss
Wordle’s appeal is rooted in its ritual. You do it once a day, the same word as everyone else, and then you share your little green and yellow squares with whoever is in your group chat. That’s all there is to it, and this simplicity is the whole point.
A neuroscientist once observed that people have a remarkably good radar for sensing when something online is designed to keep them hooked, sell them something, or quietly profit from their attention. Wordle’s quiet nature, with no ads, no push notifications, and a simple website, is a big part of why it worked.
Josh Wardle, the software engineer who built the original game, said that Wordle demonstrated that the internet could be about something other than money. A primetime NBC game show with a studio audience, a celebrity host, and a cash prize is about as far from that original spirit as you can get.
The show might end up being entertaining for many, since Guthrie is a genuine Wordle devotee, and Fallon knows how to make a crowd have fun. But the version of Wordle that is coming to your TV screen next year may not be the one you fell in love with over your morning coffee. That one was always just for you.