‘World of Dance’ Season 1 Finale Betting Odds
–The NBC reality show ‘World of Dance’ is wrapping up its first season.
–The show has pulled solid ratings and has been renewed for a second season.
–Three acts will compete in the finale which will be broadcast on August 8, 2017.
We cover a lot of reality television programs and ‘World of Dance’ has been on the periphery of our ‘radar screen’ since its premiere. It’s a bit unusual for a network reality series in that it’s not a well established franchise–it’s in its first season and will be back for Season Two next year. Not that it hasn’t had some help thanks to lead in show ‘America’s Got Talent’ which has helped it to quickly gain awareness and establish an audience. Even so, it’s held on to a good many of the ‘eyeballs’ served up by ‘AGT’ and has had an audience in the high 6 to low 7 million range for much of their debut season.
‘World of Dance’ is produced by Jennifer Lopez and she also serves as one of the judges along with Ne-Yo, and Derek Hough. One of the unique things about ‘World of Dance’ is that the format is fairly ‘free form’ in the highly regimented world of reality TV. There are three categories who compete internally at first, working their way down to a single finalist. At that point, the three group winners are pitted against each other to determine the overall champion. That’s where we’re at now. The divisions are ‘Junior’ (up to age 18), ‘Upper’ (18 and above with groups of up to four members eligible) and ‘Team’ (18 and above with groups of five or more). Having a ‘Junior’ division could have made the show into a trainwreck as lovable moppets and bumbling toddlers competed against each other but the producers deserve credit for actually finding decent dancers in this group. In fact, the favorite to win the whole thing–both in my numbers and in the ‘court of public opinion’ is from this group. That would be 14 year old Minnesotan Eva Igo who not only has a perfect name for a ‘James Bond girl‘ but is a very accomplished dancer having trained since the age of three.
The other contestants are a pair of French twins called very cleverly ‘Le Twins’. Their persona is a bit contrived down to their ‘street’ sounding nicknames of “Lil Beast” and “Ca Blaze”. They’re excellent dancers, however, and look to be a solid second behind Igo. The third finalist is a salsa combo from Cali, Columbia called ‘Swing Latino’. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some revisions in the show’s format before Season 2 since the finals pitting the winners from the three different categories has taken on a bit of an ‘apples and oranges‘ feel. Despite her age, Igo comes off as the ‘serious dancer’, the French twins as the ‘hip urban dancers’ and that unfortunately leaves ‘Swing Latino’ in the role of a novelty act. All three do their thing and do it well but it’s hard to compare them qualitatively against each other so I’m thinking that the winning order will be determined more by their ‘roles’ than anything else.
The ‘World of Dance’ Finale airs on Tuesday, August 8 at 10:00 PM. Here’s our betting odds on the dancer to “win, place and show” as well as numbers on the TV rating metrics:
‘WORLD OF DANCE’ SEASON ONE FINALE BETTING ODDS
TO WIN ‘WORLD OF DANCE’ SEASON ONE
Eva Igo: -180
Les Twins: +125
Swing Latino: +500
TO FINISH SECOND ‘WORLD OF DANCE’ SEASON ONE
Les Twins: -250
Swing Latino: +135
Eva Igo: +750
TO FINISH THIRD ‘WORLD OF DANCE’ SEASON ONE
Swing Latino: -750
Les Twins: +250
Eva Igo: +950
‘WORLD OF DANCE’ SEASON FINALE RATINGS WILL BE?
Over 1.65: -150
Under 1.65: +130
‘WORLD OF DANCE’ SEASON FINALE SHARE WILL BE?
7: -180
Any other number: +150
‘WORLD OF DANCE’ SEASON FINALE TOTAL VIEWING AUDIENCE WILL BE?
Over 6.95 million: -120
Under 6.95 million: +100