EurovisionBets&Pieces: The Eurovision Finals' Data Analysis that rules them all!!!

Two weeks ago that would be a post about the 2020 market favourites and the trends of the market but it was obvious that this Eurovision was not meant to happen and sadly we have the first contest that was cancelled. Though I do believe that this is the last of the things that we currently have in mind and the decision to cancel was the right thing to do.

I do believe that an era has closed and next year we will have a very different reality in terms of the contest. I am sure that we will see countries withdrawing next year because of lack of funding unless EBU cuts down the cost of participation. We maybe see countries out of Europe participating to balance the numbers but that's something that we will see in the future.

Trying to beat the pre-post cancelled Eurovision depression, I have decided to start posting some technical pieces to keep you some company while being in lockdown and with plenty of time in your hands.

The first post will be about the Finals. I have gathered the split results for the years 2016-2019 plus the years 2014 and 2015. There was a different voting system them, but since we do have available the split results it does help to have a bigger sample in order to be able to draw some conclusions.

The question that I have tried to answer is what's the recipe to become a winner. What's the ideal combination that guarantees the win and here are my findings. Fasten your seatbelt and let's start!!!

Winners' rankings with Juries and Televoting

So far we have the following combinations for the winners

2014: Austria:           J: 1 - TV: 1
2015: Sweden:          J: 1 - TV: 3
2016: Ukraine:         J: 2 - TV: 2
2017: Portugal:        J: 1 - TV: 1
2018: Israel:             J: 3 - TV: 1
2019: Netherlands:  J: 3 - TV: 2

Out of the six winners we do have two clear favorites that won both the Juries and Televoting, two that won one of the two and were 3rd on the other half and two winners that haven't topped either of the two. Netherlands won last year even though it finished third with Juries and second with Televoting and it is more impressive that Italy who finished second was 4th with the Juries and 3rd with the Televoting.

The average Jury rankings for the winners is 1.83 and the Televoting 1.67.

The average points for the winner are 581.7 or 60.85% of the maximum available points that equals to 7.3 pts per jury or televoting.

The best scoring performance was from Portugal 2017 with 758pts, 77.03% of the maximum points or 9.24 pts.

The lowest score for a winner is Netherlands' 2019 498pts, just 51.88% of the available points to grab, an average of 6.23 pts.

The average difference between the winner and the second place is 83.2 points. The biggest lead was in 2017 with 143 points of distance between Portugal and Bulgaria and the smallest mark the 23 points that secured the win for Ukraine in 2016 with Australia coming really close.

What's more important? Winning the Juries or the Televoting?

This is the most interesting part of the analysis. I observed the Top-5s in the final rankings and for Juries and Televoting seperately and these are my findings:

Average rankings with Juries and Televotings from Winner to 5th
Winner:  J: 1.83 - TV: 1.65

2nd:        J: 3      - TV: 2.5

3rd:         J: 5.2    - TV: 4.17

4th:         J: 6.12  - TV: 4.67

5th:         J: 6.5    - TV: 7
There is a pattern there. Televoting tends to score slighlty better than the Juries and that is because Televoting winners tend to have wider margins and score more consistently than the Jury winners! Have a look to the average points for each place for Juries and Televoting individually.

Winner:  J: 299.5 pts / 62.66% of maximum available points
              TV: 337.7 pts/ 70.65% of maximum available points

2nd:        J: 238.8 pts / 49.96% of maximum available points
                TV: 280 pts / 58.58% of maximum available points

3rd:        J: 208.1 pts / 43.54% of maximum available points
              TV: 243.5 pts / 50.94% of maximum available points

4th:        J: 182.1 pts / 38.09% of maximum available points
              TV: 215.5 pts / 45.08% of maximum available points

5th:       J: 160.1 pts / 33.49% of maximum available points
             TV: 183 pts   / 38.28% of maximum available points

Televoting secures a 23-38 pts handicap on every place. We have to go to the 7th place to see Juries scoring better than Televoting ( 134.6 vs 125.8). Finishing 3rd in Televoting is better than finishing 2nd with Juries and gives a clear advantage. The reason for that is the longer tail with the Juries. They tend to distribute their points to more countries. From 7th to 25th Jury points have a higher average than Televoting. Be it professionalism or the exchange of points between allies the jurors tend to vote more countries.

The next thing I did was to check the average rankings on the other half and the final scoreboard for the Top-5s in Juries and Televoting (eg: Jury winner: what's its average ranking in televoting and the average ranking in the combined scoreboard)

Juries
Winner: TV: 5.67  - Final Ranking: 2.5 - Deviation +4.67 / +1.5

2nd:        TV: 7.83 - Final Ranking: 4 - Deviation +5.83 / +2

3rd:         TV: 4     - Final Ranking: 2.83- Deviation +1 / -0.17

4th:          TV: 11.8 - Final Ranking: 6.17 - Deviation +7.8 / +2.17

5th:          TV: 6.33 - Final Ranking: 5.33 - Deviation +1.33 / +0.33

Televoting

Winner:  J: 5.67 - Final Ranking: 2.5 - Deviation +4.67 / +1.5

2nd:         J: 3      - Final Ranking: 1.67 - Deviation +1 / -0.33

3rd:         J: 9.5   - Final Ranking: 3.67 - Deviation +6.5 / +0.67

4th:         J: 7.33 - Final Ranking: 3.83 - Deviation +3.33 / -0.17

5th:         J: 13.83 - Final Ranking: 6.67 - Deviation +8.83 / +1.67

The winners of the individual boards have secured three wins but only have the 2nd best average.

The best place to be is finishing 2nd in televoting that has an average ranking of 1.67. That spot has given two winners and four 2nd place finishings.

The other spot where Juries and Televoters tend to agree more is finishing 3rd with Juries that secures an average ranking of 2.83 and has given the two winners in the last two years: Israel 2018, Netherlands 2019. This is definitely a trend that we should keep in mind

The other important finding is that Televoting tends to be closer to the final rankings with smaller deviations and can survive and bounce back even when the Juries try to punish it.

Televoting has punished a Top-5 jury 6 times, ranking it below Top-10 and forced two of them to finish out of Top-10.

There were 8 cases where a Televoting Top-5 has scored worse than a Top-10 with Juries but none of these discrepancies forced a finishing outside the Top-10.

I hope that find these findings useful for your future bettings or Eurovision analysis. Will try to post as often as possible to keep the conversation going. Please feel free to comment or add any valuable insights.

Eurovision 2020: This is the beginning...

The time has come! Another Eurovision season is ready to start and EurovisionBetsandPieces will be here to keep you company and provide some useful info and stats.

The national final season is here and allocation draw for the Semi Finals will be announced in the next few days.

We will have plenty of time in the following weeks to comment on the songs and I will post a few technical posts regarding the Semis but I would like to use this first post to share some thoughts and tips.

My philosophy during the National Finals season is to get involved as less as possible. I never bet on them and don't even watch. There is a huge amount of energy, data and noise that do not provide enough feedback. I prefer to listen/watch only the songs that have won their final or were chosen to represent a country. There is no point to extend the 2-2.5 months of thinking/projecting/estimating to 4 months.

Rule No2: Never place a bet on Eurovision before all the songs are known. You might lose some value but is more likely to lose lots of money on a false favorite. The last few years it has been the norm that all the favorites and power houses announce their songs in the last weekend before the EBU delegation meeting, the only exception is Italy because of the traditional dates of San Remo festival.

Rule No3: Do not forget the context. A live finished production (call me Swedish winner) cannot be compared with an impressive video clip. Staging and live vocals are two very very very important factors. Do not get over excited. The live concerts in late April could be more useful.There will be plenty of opprtunities during rehearsals and the nights of the shows.

Rule No4: The first impression is very important. I always make sure to pay attention to a song I'm listening for the first time. Always taking in consideration the context but the majority of the viewers will listen to the songs only one time.

Rule No5: The more difficult to follow! Don't forget the bubble. We hear the song so many times, we read so many analyses and so many different opinions that we forget the basic. Always follow your instict. It's your money and your ideas! Put your money where your mouth is!

My Eurovision Betting Philosophy: Patience, patience and some more patience. There are always opportunities. Even when the voting is in process there is a chance to find some value.

Momentum is another important concept. The country that wins the contest has usually been after the win for a few years. Netherlands was looking for a win since 2013 and making it last year is the perfect example. There is Sweden and Norway that always aiming for the win and it is safe to add Russia to the same category. National final for the first two and money to spend for the later make them favorites every year.

The countries that have created a momentum in the last few years and I will follow them closely are the following:

Italy: 3rd in '15, 6th in'17, 5th in'18 and 2nd last year. Italian artists realised that Eurovision can provide an international audience and that's making a difference. It's a matter of time for Italy to win the contest after almost 30 years.

Belgium: Great streak from '15 to '17 (4th, 10th, 4th) followed by 2 failures to qualify to the final but this year is sending the biggest name in the contest for a while. Hooverphonic is a proof that Belgium is after the win!

Bulgaria: They have spent so much money between 2016-2018 that had to withdraw last year because of lack of funds. Curious to see the level of production.

France: Not so many great results but they show an ambition to win the contest. There were some structural changes this year. We will have to find out when they present their song.

Switzerland: Was it an one off  last year? Will they try to capitalise on last year's result?

Australia: They are here to stay and they want to win the trophy! Five participations, four Top-10 results with a 2nd and a 5th place. Australians are investing heavily and eventually they will be rewarded.