Online Quiz League UK - Newsletter - 2025-12
As we approach the end of 2025 there are lots of things to tell you about regarding Online Quiz League. This email will give you information about our recent competitions and their winners and also advise you on the various OQL competitions that you can currently register for.
Recent competitions
2025 OQL Buzzer Quiz
On Saturday 23rd November, 300 quizzers across 60 teams joined us in Birmingham for OQL’s (and possibly the UK’s) biggest ever buzzer quiz.
A fantastic event, despite the Birmingham rain, saw IHOP finally end the reign of Quizbowl Cabal when they defeated Dartologists in a hotly contested final.
Our other winners were
- Plate – Four Phantoms in Search of a Coach
- Bowl – Scatterbrains
- Saucer – Fitton Ground Crew
- Spoon – The Other One
- TeaSpoon – Rota Madmen
A huge thank you to everyone who helped make this huge event possible and thank you to all the teams who braved the Birmingham rain to make it our biggest buzzer quiz yet.
We’ll be announcing the 2026 event in due course so please look out for further information regarding that.
OQL Season 17
OQL Season 17 was our biggest to date with 163 teams competing across 8 different tiers and 14 divisions. The season climaxed a couple of weeks ago with Mangoes pipping Pericardium to the title to take their 4th title.
Our other Divisional Champions were
- Division 2 – Quiz Machine Kills Fascists
- Division 3 – Grinling Gibbons
- Division 4 – Wigton Wanderers
- Division 5 – Splendid Isolation
- Division 6 - All the Kohinoors are belong to us
- Division 7 – The Strangers
- Division 8 - Expecting Toulouse
Season 18 of OQL is now open for registration – more details on that to follow.
Pop Culture Challenge
The 10th season of Pop Culture Challenge was also our biggest yet with 336 players participating across 9 weeks of exciting pop culture questions.
When all was said and done it was Jonathan Gibson who won his first ever title, edging out Jack Lewis, John Robinson and Richard Appleyard in an exciting final.
Huge congratulations to Jonathan and well done to all our other tier winners.
Our long standing PCC editor, David Stainer, has chosen to step down. We thank him for all his hard work over the years; he has been integral to the success of PCC. We are very excited to announce our new editor team of Alexia Jarvis and Lewis Jones who’ll be bringing their years of quiz experience to the competition and they have fantastic ideas for how to take the competition forwards.
Pop Culture Challenge Season 11 is now open for registration, further details below.
International Culture Challenge
Season 10 of OQL’s global event, The International Culture Challenge, is well underway with 316 players representing around 20 different countries currently taking on fiendish highbrow questions each week.
Connections Online Quiz League
One of OQL’s most popular events is the Connections Online Quiz League. Our 10th season is currently coming to a close and we were delighted to host an Australian conference for the first time. The season ends before the end of 2025. Our next season is open for registration and will include a completely free taster tournament for new teams. Further details on how to be a part of it are below.
Upcoming events
With lots of OQL events starting in January and February, there are lots of events that you can currently register for, the details of all of these are below. They’re listed in chronological order of the registration deadlines. Whilst some of these events may be of no interest to you, we hope that at least one will spark your interest so do please read through them all.
OQL Live VIII December
Our next OQL Live VIII takes place on Saturday 13th December at in person venues across the UK and Ireland. Live VIII’s feature a 240-question individual written quiz, a fun team event and an exciting buzzer quiz. First time players pay just £1 for a full day of quiz fun, and we are excited to announce we have our first ever Manchester venue.
The deadline to register for this event is Saturday 6th December so you’ll need to act quickly if you wish to participate.
Full details and how to register are available via https://quizcentral.net/oqllive/ OQL UK+Ireland Season 18
The next season of the world’s biggest individual quiz league, OQL UK+Ireland kicks off on Wednesday 14th January 2026. We always welcome new teams and players where you’ll compete in weekly matches of 4 v 4 players and if you don’t know the answer to your question, your teammates can save you.
We can always welcome new teams and players. New teams pay just £55 for a full season of OQL fun which is an 11-week league season and at least 2 cup matches. New individuals will either be placed on an existing team or put into a brand-new scratch team to join the league for Season 18.
This is a UK based league where all matches are played at 8pm UK time on a Wednesday but we welcome both individual players and teams from anywhere in the world.
Further details and how to register are available at https://quizcentral.net/qc/Online_Quiz_League_UK . Full teams must register by Friday 9th January 2026 and individuals should register by Monday 5th January to ensure a team can be found for them. Returning teams will need to confirm they’re returning by Friday 9th January.
Connections Online Quiz League
Connections Online Quiz League is OQL’s most popular competition with 218 teams competing across our three conferences; USA, UK and Australia. This competition is based on the hit BBC 2 show Only Connect.
Our 11th season will commence in February, however, in January we offer a completely free taster tournament for new players and teams. You’ll get the chance to play 3 weeks of Connections quizzes, completely for free. We’re confident that you’ll love the taster event so much that you’ll then sign up for our new season which commences on Tuesday 10th February 2026.
The Taster Tournament commences on Tuesday 20th January 2026 and teams will need to register by Saturday 17th January to confirm their place in the Taster Tournament. Individuals looking to join a scratch team for the Taster Tournament should register by Tuesday 13th January to ensure a team can be found for you.
Returning teams looking to participate in COQL Season 11 will need to confirm this by Tuesday 3rd February.
Full details and how to register for the Taster Tournament are available via our website at https://quizcentral.net/qc/Connections_Online_Quiz_League
Pop Culture Challenge Season 11
Our new editing team of Alexia Jarvis and Lewis Jones are in place. They’ve assembled a fantastic writing team which includes 6 new writers, one of whom is the PCC Season 10 champion. So, we’re all set for what we expect to be the biggest and best Pop Culture Challenge to date.
PCC is a competition which focuses solely on the pop culture side of quiz, TV, film, sport, celebrities, Food and drink and much, much more. There’s no need to know your world capitals or classical composers for this quiz.
All players will play 9 weeks of individual quizzes against 3 different opponents each week. Games are arranged at times that suit the players schedules.
Season 11 commences on Monday 2nd February 2026 and players have until Saturday 31st January to register. Returning players pay just £35 to participate in PCC Season 11, brand new players will pay a bargain rate of £25!
We have a 6 week leaderboard stage followed by 3 weeks of knock out matches and the top 3 players in their tiers will win medals which can be sent anywhere in the world.
2026 OQL World Quiz Championship
On Saturday 28th March 2026, quizzers from around the world will sit down to undertake the 2nd OQL World Quiz Championship.
This is an in-person event only with venues being hosted all over the world. OQL will co-ordinate the venues in England, Ireland, USA and Canada. If you’d be interested in hosting a venue in your country please email us at info@onlinequizleague.com and we’ll let you know what you need to know to host a venue.
2026 OQL British Quiz Weekender
The absolute quiz highlight of 2025 was the OQL British Quiz Weekender which took place in Manchester over the first weekend in August.
The event involved 3 days of quizzes and socialising with nearly 200 quizzers descending on the Mercure, Manchester Piccadilly.
We are delighted to announce that we will be returning to the Mercure, Manchester Piccadilly for the 2026 event and have even been able to reduce the price to just £159* per person for 3 days of quizzes, social activities and fun!
The event will run from 31st July to 2nd August 2026 and the Mercure is receiving a full refurbishment prior to our return so we can expect an even better experience for the 2026 event.
Full details of the quizzes and social activities are available via our website at https://quizcentral.net/weekender/
- Early bird rate only available until 28th February 2026, after this date the price will be £189 per person.
And that’s all our recent events and all of our upcoming ones. We hope there is something for you in the above events and if you’ve any questions about any of the upcoming OQL events, please email us at info@onlinequizleague.com
Best wishes,
The entire OQL team.