In this photo illustration, the Wordle logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen.
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Wordle is officially coming to primetime TV.
NBC has greenlit a competition show based on The New York Times’ viral word puzzle, with Today co-host Savannah Guthrie set to host the show that’ll also be produced in partnership with Jimmy Fallon’s production company Electric Hot Dog.
The move marks the latest step in The Times’ transformation into a diversified content powerhouse that now spans games, audio, gadget reviews, and lifestyle products. Set to premiere in 2027, the NBC show has already begun casting and will feature teams of Wordle players competing for cash prizes, as the NYT attempts to turn another of its non-news properties into a broader entertainment franchise — reminiscent of how its hit podcast The Daily became a success in its own right.
Fallon and Guthrie themselves are fans of and regular Wordle players, with Guthrie once tackling the day’s Wordle puzzle live on a giant billboard in Times Square and solving it in three guesses. “I feel very honored to be working with Savannah Guthrie on this show,” Fallon said in a statement about the NBC veteran, who he went on to praise for her “rare combination of intelligence, charm, and warmth that makes everyone feel instantly welcome.”
The Times says that teams of three players — which can be made up of friends, family members, significant others, co-workers, and the like — will head to Europe to be filmed playing the game between late July and early August.
The project has actually been under consideration by the NYT for a while now. Caitlin Roper, executive editorial director of film and TV at the Times, said the paper started developing a Wordle TV show concept several years ago.
By way of a refresher: Wordle itself is a product of the Covid pandemic, when software engineer Josh Wardle (the name of the game is a nod to his last name) built the game initially as a private project. It launched in 2021 and was acquired by The New York Times in 2022.
The game asks players to figure out a hidden five-letter word in six tries. After each guess, the tiles change color. Green means the guessed letter is in the right spot, yellow means it belongs elsewhere in the word, and gray means it’s not part of the answer at all.
Sharon Vuong, NBC executive vice president of unscripted programming, has described Wordle as “one of the most successful and culturally resonant games of the past decade.” For the Times, meanwhile, the business rationale here is increasingly clear.
Wordle ultimately became another gateway into the Times’ broader ecosystem. The paper’s parent company recently reported another strong quarter driven by digital subscriptions and advertising growth, with products like Games, Cooking, Wirecutter, and The Athletic helping turn the company into something much broader than a traditional newspaper publisher.
The Times also isn’t alone in looking beyond its core business for new audience opportunities.
With the future of traditional late-night television increasingly uncertain, Fallon has been expanding beyond The Tonight Show, including through NBC’s new reality competition series On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. He’s executive producing the new Wordle show, which NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said “reflects our broader approach of creating experiences people return to and share every day.”