Last week, I learned that the Wurst Bar was no longer going to be offering My Trivia Live trivia nights on Wednesdays, and would be switching over to the Geeks Who Drink trivia company. I also received an e-mail from MTL informing me about Wurst no longer offering MTL trivia nights.

From a longtime trivia player’s point of view, I couldn’t help but feel bad for Stacy, the host of these weekly games, and the dedicated MTL players at the Wurst Bar, including members of the “Pants Team,” and the four other league teams who have been waging trivia battle each week (plus another team who has been there every week since week three). I would presume that most of these players had a “goal” of going to the MTL semifinals – and finals – when the season ended.

In addition to the teams showing weekly scores here, there were also “barhop” teams in the mix, and other random teams not playing with league numbers.

Screen capture of the most up-to-date scores at the Wurst Bar

At least that’s how it was for us when we played there regularly for about a year and a half (ending around the end of 2017). I know that if I were still one of those “dedicated” players and heard that the trivia nights I’d been assembling teams for each week were going to be no more – I would be upset.

Per the league rules in MTL, players whose trivia spots no longer offer MTL trivia can continue logging scores at another designated “home bar” each week until the end of the season. Here’s what MTL has to say in response to “What if my home bar ceases to do trivia at their location?”

“We really hope that doesn’t happen but if it does, you will retain your league number and pick a new home bar taking your league number with you. You will continue to compete with the leagues that were in your home bar even though you may not all be playing at the same location. You must continue to play weekly.”

Some other “local” places these players can play – if they choose to continue playing MTL – include Powell’s Pub (Monday nights), McShane’s Pub (Tuesday nights), Pizza House/Oscars (Wednesday nights) and Bobby McShane’s (Friday nights). As a side note, Oscars offers both MTL and Sporcle Live trivia nights (Sporcle Live trivia nights are on Saturdays).

“Choose” is the key word here. Bar owners can “choose” whichever trivia company (if any) – they want, and likewise, the players can “choose” wherever they play, if trivia is their “thing.” As a team, we’ve “chosen” to play in certain places, and “chosen” not to play in other places. So far, we’ve “chosen” to play in both Sporcle Live and MTL games, and even played a Geeks Who Drink game once (in Staunton, Virginia, 2017). We didn’t feel the fast-paced GWD format was a good one for our mix of players, though it might be a good format for plenty of other league teams playing in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area (and at the other Michigan locations at which it is offered). Locally, GWD is offered Tuesdays at Blue Tractor in Ann Arbor, Townies Brewery on Wednesdays and beginning tonight, the Wurst Bar in Ypsilanti.

Choices are good, right? Maybe some of the Wurst players will find they like Geeks Who Drink better – or maybe they won’t. Maybe they won’t even bother giving it a try. I’m a “don’t knock it unless you try it” kind of person. Maybe MTL will be able to book a deal with another local bar so that Ypsi isn’t losing yet another trivia spot (I always feel a bit sad when my town loses a weekly trivia spot, but then I’m a bit of a trivia “junkie”).

It will be interesting to see what happens tonight with the Wednesday night “regulars” at the Wurst Bar who showed up specifically for the MTL nights, which have been offered there for the past several years.

I’ll never forget the words a fellow trivia player said to me a few years ago when I expressed dissatisfaction with how things were going with our trivial pursuits.

“Vote with your feet,” that player said.