An Odds-On Banker?

With Sweden well into the 1.6s, it's time to dig up the market's patchy record in similarly odds-on favourites winning so let’s go through the list and see what happened to each victim of the odds-on curse.

France 2011

Final placing: 15th

What happened?

Whilst I'm not sure Amaury ever made it odds on, (5/4 is the shortest I can see) I'm still going to include this as the archetypal ‘market was way off scenario’. In general 2011 is the messiest set of results you'll find and France flopping is a contributer to that.
The main cited reason is the awkward and not pitch perfect live performance but that alone doesn't contribute to a drop into midtable. I'd say there was a general over estimation of how high brow juries would be in rating corsican opera but then Italian jazz won the vote. Or that there was never room for appeal to either a casual or Eurovision audience, only this was doing pretty well in polling and we've seen Il Volo smash the televote. Hmm, perhaps the performance was that bad after all...

Armenia 2014

Final placing: 4th

What happened?

Araam Mp3 saw maybe saw the biggest combination of factors:

Producer reluctance: Hosting the 60th anniversary edition in Yerevan is often cited as an Ebu concern who will always favour a Western European hosting, of which every alternative turned out to be. Drawing first half at both opportunities gave an open goal to put the breaks on.

Media: Negative press surrounding artist comments combined with a big narrative push surrounding eventual winners Austria. This compounds with the above producer reluctance. I can't speak for other broadcasts but Graham Norton pointing out "bags under his eyes", referring to 'disrespectful comments' and summing up the song as a "stalker's anthem" stands out as the low point of his tenure to me and more mean spirited than much of the Wogan commentary. Anyway, few were willing to hype Armenia up by the time of the final with all focus elsewhere.

The Song: Even more so than 'Sognu', 'Not Alone' doesn't really fit the bill as your classic Eurovision Song, particularly in the very mainstream 2009-2015 stretch of a joined up jury/televote. One pretty huge gear change into a dubstep beat proved too eclectic without enough of a call to action by...

The live performance: I don't really feel Armenia did too much wrong and there's no obvious quick fix that would have reversed the above issues. As bluntly as Norton put it, artists not at their best or drained from the months of build up is the most common theme we'll see and another shared trait with France 2011, as was being, ironically, alone on stage.

Russia 2016:

Final Placing: 3rd

What Happened?

Juries and politics:

As most anticipated, Russia were able to convincingly take the televote but were doomed by the time the split screen came up. Lazarev's dated and cheesy dream team song was hardly jury bait but with a very strong live performance and being one of the frontrunners,  you might expect a few more points- at least some 2 - 5s in place of the many blanks in an un-amazing lineup. Russia weren't robbed but politics did, as always, play it's part. Strip out the Russia-Ukraine issues and the over-eagerness of producers to push for an Australia win and Sergey probably would have won so this came the closest from any of the failures on this list.

Sweden 2016

Final placing: 5th

What happened?
A quick one as Frans only briefly touched odds on and quite a bit before the contest but it's still worth mentioning as he brings us a few different reason's for the market's misplaced faith...
An over-assumption/exaggeration of 'If I Were Sorry' going viral and general faith in Sweden continuing their amazing form. A touch of over-rating a host entry and a back to back narrative also played it's part. Drawing 9th was not ideal and the live performance regressed, intentionally or not.

Italy 2017

Final Placing: 6th

What happened?
Out of all the odds-on entries here, this is the one that the market was most confident in. In general, you can find many highlighting the red flags around the other entries if you care to trawl historical forums and podcasts but few where the voices who didn't have Italy in 1st this year.

Gabbani had a tough transition to the Eurovision stage and appeared himself completely out of steam, similarly to the Italian odds by the night of the final. A dark and messy performance was eclipsed by more coherent packages. The need to edit this under 3 minutes also did not help. The main problem was again that the competition were significantly underrated not only in Portugal and Bulgaria but also in Italy's loose niche with Moldova and Romania taking plenty of the "fun" votes.

Ukraine 2022

Final placing: 1st

What happened?
Finally a winner for the markets! Oh wait, this one was probably sub optimal for most of us self-proclaimed "experts". Ukraine swept to victory in a heartwarming display of pan-European, and Australian :), solidarity. Plus 'Stefania' was a banger and would have won anyway. Or sympathy votes and diaspora, phrase it how you wish, the truth is somewhat in between.
Anyway Ukraine won because no other country that year could offer anywhere near as much reason to vote whilst juries were happy enough to go along with it.

For those interested, 2011 and '14 were before my betting days really so I can't really give an opinion as such. I was always against Sweden '16 and Italy '17 but Russia '16 and a scepticism on Ukraine last year blotch the copy however.

Conclusions

What can we take from these failures for this year however and how many of the potential pitfalls could Loreen fall into? Well there's not going to be any producer burying or jury attempt to stop this winning, likely the opposite. Loreen is also a reliable performer so Sweden backers are safe on that front and it's a tad unlikely she causes a negative media outrage in the next couple of weeks. It's also worth saying a disproportionate number, in fact a majority of the "failures", were direct finalists whilst Sweden has it's chance in semi 1. Interestingly, all our featured flops have been males too which obviously also does not apply. The song itself gets a pass too in subjectively having broad, tested appeal and objectively not being as challenging or risky as 'Sognu' and 'Not Alone'.

I'd say we're therefore looking at two potential hurdles: staging, and the vague competition threat no song is ever safe from.

On the first point, this is somewhat sign posted in the potential need to change from the melodifestivalen staging. Will hindsight pieces in years to come proclaim Loreen lost the trophy due to no hanging apparatus and the BBC throwing in longshot arena angles or something? Honestly the chances of Sweden showing up the same/similar/better or even being worse but that not affecting them enough seem higher. I'm not overly concerned and even something sub optimal could see Loreen win given her buffer.

That brings us to the competition question and this is almost impossible to answer. I could start listing off the rivals and their issues but then I'd be eating into what little of a preview I can come up with for this awkward year. Instead I'll make this a loose two parter so come back tomorrow for my thoughts on the rest of the field and the year overall.