‘So You Think You Can Dance’ Season 14 Betting Odds
–This is the 14th season for Fox TVs ‘So You Think You Can Dance’.
–Season 14 premieres on Monday, June 12 at 8 PM Eastern.
–Vanessa Hudgens will join Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy as judges.
Much about Fox TV’s reality dancing show ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ follows the traditional reality show rubric. The series was created by ‘American Idol’ producers and took the airwaves by storm when it debuted in 2005. It was the top rated show of the Summer during its first two seasons and the producers expanded their franchise from there. The show has been seen in localized version in 25 countries. Back in the United States, ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ has received 55 Emmy nominations winning 15 awards.
Like every other reality show, ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ has been clobbered by the 1-2 punch of boredom with the show and a changing broadcast television landscape. Per episode viewership has dropped from 10 million in the early years to just over 2 million last year. To be fair, ‘SYTYCD’ (the shows cognoscenti actually use this awkward acronym) is no different from any other reality including heavyweights like ‘Survivor‘, ‘The Amazing Race‘ and ‘Dancing With The Stars‘. The digital revolution has completely obliterated the entertainment world in which the shows originally premiered.
In that context, it’s somewhat surprising that the show was life and death to return for another season. In today’s broadcast landscape there’s nothing that is guaranteed to aggregate a large mainstream audience. A few years ago, live sporting events were hailed as the ‘savior’ of big network television but even they no longer have the cachet they once did. That’s why networks are happy to get a few million viewers in the same place at the same time every week and that’s precisely what reality TV delivers. ‘SYTYCD’ averaged 2.94 million viewers per week in 2016. Fox executives wanted bigger numbers but among the major TV networks they might be the most delusional about the reality of the broadcast industry circa 2017.
2016 VIEWERSHIP HAD ‘REVERSE MOMENTUM’
If there’s a legit gripe with the show based on last season it’s how the viewership grew throughout the season. It didn’t. Things started hopefully–the season premiere attracted 3.75 million viewers which grew to 4.08 million in Week 2. That would be the high water mark for the season and viewership declined or was stagnant every week thereafter. Only five of the thirteen episodes had a viewership in excess of three million and making matters worse they were the first five episodes of the year. A woeful 2.27 million tuned in for the finale–the lowest total viewership of the year. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.
The producers had several ‘scapegoat’ cards to play but the most probable was what would be called ‘entry conditions’ in horse racing. The 2016 show featured dancers between the ages of 8 and 13. In the 1970’s, when a show was desperate they’d ‘bring in a kid’–a phenomenon known as ‘Cousin Oliver Syndrome‘ in ‘honor’ of the unctuous cretin with a blond mop of hair that infested the dying days of the ‘Brady Bunch’. It didn’t save the ‘Brady Bunch’ but it became the ‘go to move’ for slumping TV series for decades. Maybe the 2016 season of ‘SYTYCD’ was the most extreme example of ‘Cousin Oliver Syndrome‘ ever?
Since 2016 demonstrated that obnoxious children of dubious talent with domineering ‘stage parents’ aren’t the ticket to ratings success in the 21st century the ‘SYTYCD’ producers are billing this season as a ‘return to roots’. Basically, that means that the contestants will all be above the age of majority. The other ‘scapegoat card’ floated by ‘SYTYCD’ producers was the show’s failure to attract viewers in ‘flyover country’. It pulled strong numbers in cities but not in the hinterlands of America. The show is inexplicably(?) most popular in the state of Utah. It’s hard to determine whether this is a ’cause’ or ‘effect’ of the show’s massive popularity in the Beehive State but in the previous 13 seasons 17 contestants have come from Utah.
MAKING IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG
So what are the rules and format of the show? Your guess is as good as mine. The show differs from ‘Dancing With The Stars’ in that the contestants aren’t celebrities but aspiring dancers. The show holds open auditions to find a cast and once they pare this mob to a reasonable sized group of finalists the live action starts in July. The good news? They do a decent job keeping details under wraps unlike ‘The Bachelorette’. The bad news? There’s no continuity in the rules from one season to the next. The general idea is to pull together 20 ‘finalists’ but several seasons have started live programming with 16, 12 and 10 finalists. Most seasons end with one winner but two seasons have had multiple winners. The number of judges vary as does the point where they quit making an autonomous decision on elimination and voting begins.
Since so much is unknown about Season 14 of ‘SYTYCD’ including the number and identity of the contestants it makes setting odds somewhat difficult. So we’ll start with what we *do* know and keep you updated on what’s going on as the season progresses. Here’s the official SPORTS BETTING EXPERTS ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ Season 14 preliminary odds. Look for more odds and markets to be added as events on the show necessitate:
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (SYTYCD) SEASON 14 BETTING ODDS
NUMBER OF ‘FULL TIME JUDGES’ ON SEASON 14 OF ‘SYTYCD’?
Under 3.5: -450
Over 3.5: +375
WILL AT LEAST ONE ‘SYTYCD’ SEASON 14 FINALISTS BE FROM UTAH?
Yes: +300
No: -350
Hometown listed in Fox TV media information will be used for judging.
WILL AT LEAST ONE ‘SYTYCD’ SEASON 14 FINALISTS BE FROM CALIFORNIA?
Yes: -250
No: +210
Hometown listed in Fox TV media information will be used for judging.
NUMBER OF ‘SYTYCD’ SEASON 14 FINALISTS FROM UTAH?
Over 1.5: +600
Under 1.5: -750
Hometown listed in Fox TV media information will be used for judging.
NUMBER OF ‘SYTYCD’ SEASON 14 FINALISTS FROM CALIFORNIA?
Over 2.5: -210
Under 2.5: +180
Hometown listed in Fox TV media information will be used for judging.
WILL THE ‘SYTYCD’ SEASON 14 WINNER BE FROM UTAH?
Yes: +600
No: -750
Hometown listed in Fox TV media information will be used for judging. In the event of multiple winners bet will be graded a ‘WIN’ if at least one is from Utah.
WILL THE ‘SYTYCD’ SEASON 14 WINNER BE FROM CALIFORNIA?
Yes: +165
No: -185
Hometown listed in Fox TV media information will be used for judging. In the event of multiple winners bet will be graded a ‘WIN’ if at least one is from California.
GENDER OF THE ‘SYTYCD’ SEASON 14 WINNER?
Male: +105
Female: -125
In the event of multiple winners bet will be graded ‘no action’
AVERAGE PER EPISODE VIEWERSHIP FOR SEASON 14 OF ‘SYTYCD’?
Over 2.25 million: -150
Under 2.25 million: +130
AVERAGE PER EPISODE RATING FOR SEASON 14 OF ‘SYTYCD’?
Over 0.85: -130
Under 0.85: +110
AVERAGE PER EPISODE SHARE FOR SEASON 14 OF ‘SYTYCD’?
Over 3.25: +100
Under 3.25: -120
VIEWERSHIP FOR SEASON 14 EPISODE 1 OF ‘SYTYCD’?
Over 3.25 million: -150
Under 3.25 million: +130
RATING FOR SEASON 14 EPISODE 1 OF ‘SYTYCD’?
Over 1.15: -125
Under 1.15: +105
SHARE FOR SEASON 14 EPISODE 1 OF ‘SYTYCD’?
Over 3.25: +100
Under 3.25: -120