ESPN Trivia Night from Funko Games tests your sports knowledge while offering those with more skills than data an opportunity to keep the score tight.
Our family consumes plenty of sports content yet I find the idea of competing in a sports trivia game intimidating. And although ESPN Trivia Night offers multiple-choice questions in a wide range of topics and a few levels of difficulty, our household's sports trivia knowledge couldn't correctly tackle the majority of questions.
However ESPN Trivia Night offers a chance to recoup points lost by an incorrect answer with a physical challenge. (Suddenly I feel like I’m channeling Marc Summers.)
In fact ESPN Trivia Night from Funko Games lets you experience the demands of the front office and the between-the-lines athlete, all while putting your sports knowledge to the test. The goal is to be the first team to score 4 points in the categories All Sports, Baseball, Basketball, Football & Ice Hockey. Gameplay begins with a draft. Six cards are dealt face up and the teams will make their draft selections alternating until all cards have been placed. You’ll have to weigh your choices here in an effort to give your team the best opportunities for that 4 pt win. Which card is your first round pick? Is your opponent eyeing the same card you are? Decisions, Decisions.
Question cards are sorted into 7 categories – the scoring categories of All Sports, Baseball, Basketball, Football & Ice Hockey are presented with a 1pt, 2pt, or 3pt question. The categories of Logos & Mascots and Seen on Screen offers questions from the various sports and can only garner a single point. The team that will be answering must select which sport.
By the way, if you have players with varying degrees of knowledge, you could add a golf-style handicap on your own as well. Questions are posed with multiple choice answers so there’s room to present them as open-ended to really challenge teams or reduce options for players who may appreciate better odds in selecting the right answer.
But as designed, if your team answers the question incorrectly, you’re given an instant replay token which you will later trade in for a second chance to score. Once the six questions determined by the draft have been answered gameplay moves to these Instant Replay Challenges.
Can you flip it into the strike zone?
ESPN Trivia Night Instant Replay Challenges gives players the chance to score a point by:
- Baseball – flip the baseball through the strike zone rectangle
- Basketball – flip the basketball through the hoop
- Football – flip the football through the uprights
- Ice Hockey – flip the puck into the goal
In our house the non-sports fans enjoyed testing their abilities at these tiddly-wink style games. Each one requires its own finesse due to the goal. We found hockey the easiest and basketball surprisingly the most challenging.
As designed gameplay continues in this rotation of questions then challenges until a team reaches 4 points in each of the five sports but you could easily adapt gameplay to the highest score after a select number of rounds if you’re trying to squeeze in a bit of fun during the half or as a part of your pre-game fun.
As a family with diehards and casuals I appreciated how the game's design keeps all levels of sports fan entertained much like the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN.
(https://www.amazon.com/Funko-53756-ESPN-Trivia-Night/dp/B08XBZ6G5M/)