‘The Bachelorette’ Final Four Betting Odds
–This is the 13th season for ABC’s distaff spin-off of ‘The Bachelor’.
–Dallas attorney Rachel Lindsay is the series’ first African-American bachelorette.
–The second episode of ‘The Bachelorette’ will air on Monday, May 29 at 8 PM Eastern.
The popularity of reality television may have ‘peaked’ in popularity over a decade ago but the genre continues to show impressive endurance. More importantly for the legacy broadcast TV networks the top reality shows can still aggregate a large and diverse audience. The ability to do that is becoming more and more rare in the 21st century’s fragmented and on-demand consumer culture. With the decentralization of entertainment options continuing to accelerate the ability to ‘pull numbers’ is going to become all the more valuable to the legacy TV networks. In that regard, reality television delivers. They may be down a tick or two in the ratings from previous years but that likely has more to do with the changing nature of the broadcast industry than any erosion in popularity. Another key component of the popularity of reality television–the ‘franchise’ series are surprisingly strong with younger viewers.
One of the most popular and entertaining series–‘The Bachelorette’ began it’s 13th season on Monday night. The series is a spin-off of ‘The Bachelor’ (which completed their 21st season earlier this year) and is a modern reboot of the venerable concept explored in the past by ‘The Dating Game‘ and ‘Love Connection‘. The rest of the format is classic reality television–start with a big group of aspiring suitors and keep paring them down. Hopefully, entertainment will be provided in the process. The first episode did very strong ratings though the numbers were down two-tenths of a point from last year’s series premier. As noted previously, this has as much to do with macro level entertainment and media concepts as it does with the show itself.
‘The Bachelorette’ premier did a 1.8 rating among adults 18-49 good enough for a second place tie with ‘Dancing with the Stars’. The two ABC series finished just one-tenth of a point behind the top show of the night as NBC’s ‘The Voice’ (another reality show) finished with a 1.9. All three programs earned a 7 share. ‘The Voice’ brought in 9.49 million viewers, ‘Dancing with the Stars’ 10.39 million and ‘The Bachelorette’ 5.68 million.
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING
The Season 13 ‘bachelorette’ is Rachel Lindsay, a beautiful African-American attorney from Dallas. As I watched the show–and despite the slew of hand wringing race based editorializing in the media today–all I could think about is that despite some remaining high profile issues that society has made considerable progress in the last few decades. The 31 eligible bachelors trying to win Rachel’s affections are of diverse race and culture–and it’s no big deal. There are still plenty of degenerate subhumans out there who equate mixed race relationships with ‘white genocide’ but they represent an ever shrinking lunatic fringe.
Viewed in a historical context, it’s a tangible sign that American society is ‘growing up’. Most civilized countries around the world are well ahead of the United States in terms of racial tolerance but even in my lifetime there’s been amazing progress. The first mixed race couple given a high profile role on network television were about as high profile as you can get–Lucille Ball and her Cuban born husband Desi Arnaz starred in ‘I Love Lucy’ in 1951. The casting of Arnaz was a result of social progress, but not racial tolerance. Lucille Ball already had enough ‘juice’ in the industry that she threatened to walk if her real life husband wasn’t cast in the role and that hadn’t always been the case for women in showbiz. The show’s producers at CBS had argued against Diaz being cast in the role claiming that the audience would find this type of biracial relationship ‘unbelievable’ despite the fact that Lucy and Desi had been married ten years at the time:
When CBS approached Lucille Ball with the offer of turning her popular radio show My Favorite Husband into a television show, she was agreeable with one condition: that her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz, would be cast in the role of her spouse (played on the radio by Richard Denning). The network balked—there was no way that American viewers would accept average housewife Liz Cooper (her character’s name on the radio series) being married to a “foreign” man with an indecipherable accent. Never mind the fact that Lucy and Desi had been married more than a decade; such a “mixed” marriage was unbelievable.
Spoiler alert–the audience bought in. ‘I Love Lucy’ became one of the most successful and influential sitcoms in history. Having anyone *other* than Arnaz cast as Lucy’s husband is now unfathomable but that’s exactly what would have happened had one of the biggest stars in showbiz not thrown her weight around. The big taboo remained, however, as it would be a long time that any type of romantic relationship involving an African-American would be shown on TV.
This ugly legacy notwithstanding, the entire vibe on the current season of ‘The Bachelorette’ is that it’s no big deal and that’s something that wouldn’t have happened on television until the past decade or so. It’s no big deal that an African American woman is choosing a suitor from a roomful of racially diverse men. There were plenty of ersatz analysts online today trying to make a tenuous sociocultural point using the backdrop of reality television but as far as the show itself there’s not even a subtext of this. It’s just an attractive and successful woman looking for love from among a group of (mostly) handsome and successful men. And that’s the way it should be.
Here’s the SPORTS BETTING EXPERTS odds to make the ‘final four’ on ‘The Bachelorette’. The oddsmaking team is working through the rest of the season long odds and we’ll also be bringing you propositions on every weekly episode. One thing we won’t have the most obvious betting market–the ‘to win’ wager. Rachel Lindsay has already announced she’s engaged. It hasn’t been made ‘official’ but every indication is that her future hubby is Peter Kraus. If this is validated as being correct we’ll take him ‘off the board’ and make these ‘Odds to Reach the ‘Final Three’.
THE BACHELORETTE SEASON 13 BETTING ODDS
TO REACH THE ‘FINAL FOUR’
Peter:-300
Eric: +250
Bryan: +450
Dean: +650
Josiah: +650
Kenny (pro wrestler Kenny King): +650
Anthony: +750
Diggy: +950
Brady: +950
DeMario: +1250
Alex: +1250
Matt: +1500
Lee: +1750
Jack: +1750
Blake E: +1750
Fred: +1750
Jamey: +2150
Will: +2150
Jonathan: +2500
Iggy: +2500
Adam: +2500
Bryce: +3250
Lucas (the guy that says WHABOOM!): +5000