DWTS Season 15, Week 6 – A Dancing by the Numbers Retrospective on Sabrina Bryan
So, what happened to Sabrina is pretty easy to explain. Everyone covered the spread. Period. She was at the top of the leaderboard and didn’t need to get MORE votes than anyone else, she just needed to get enough votes to prevent them from catching up to her.
The table below shows Sabrina versus each of the other dancers, the percentage between them and then the number of votes per million votes cast that that individual needs to bypass Sabrina and stay safe.
Ultimately, every single dancer got at least one more than that number of votes per million votes cast than Sabrina and Sabrina was, therefore, eliminated. Looking at the numbers, above, you can see that it wouldn’t be really hard for anyone other than Kelly to get the votes. Those are small damn numbers. And if Sabrina isn’t getting many votes, just how hard is it for Kelly? Spare me the “Power of the soap fan” spiel. That’s nuts – if ya’ll were that powerful Soap’s audiences wouldn’t be shrinking and they wouldn’t be getting cancelled left and right. And Kelly wasn’t the only person who beat Sabrina – EVERYONE did. Which means she just wasn’t getting the votes. This says nothing, really, about Kelly and everything about Sabrina.
Why did this happen? Well, I’ve seen all the conspiracy theories out there and most of them are just bull. Sandy had nothing to do with it. People not being able to vote because of Sandy would have affected all couples equally. There are TWO theories that MIGHT (emphasis on “might”) have contributed to her being eliminated this week (instead of say, NEXT week). One: people who were splitting votes between the girlfriends (Shawn, Melissa, Sabrina), could have gotten really pissed at Len for his treatment of Shawn and threw all their votes to her. The important point is not that they gave votes to Shawn, but that they DIDN’T give them to Sabrina. Two: the couples doing their individual dance on Tuesday instead of Monday might have suffered a negative impact because the Tuesday night show is watched by millions fewer voters. As someone who has a twitter account named “PureDerekHough” and who gets called Derek at least 15 times per week, I can honestly say that people are stupid – or they just don’t think. Switching voting night could have a minor impact. Note the word MINOR. That would have affected four of the couples but Sabrina already was low on voters. Again, just because I think this might have had some degree of impact it IN NO WAY means that I think those are the sole reasons she went home.
It’s very unlikely that one of those things by itself was to blame for Sabrina’s exit – they were nothing more than contributing factors. They just speeded up what was going to happen anyway, eventually. Sabrina was NEVER going to make the finale. We’ve discussed this for weeks now. Courtney and I both said so before the season even started. She didn’t get the votes in her original season to get past week 6, why on earth does anyone think her odds were better on an ALL STAR season?? That she actually made it to week 6 was a testament to the judges scores and the passion of the people who feel she got robbed last time. Unfortunately for her, there just aren’t enough of those people relative to the people voting for the other couples.
Now, you want someone to blame, you blame the producers for MAYBE making her leave one week early. MAYBE. Yes, I see all you wackados out there blaming Derek, the judges and god knows who else for Sabrina’s exit – yes, yes, we know everything’s Derek’s fault. And people say *I* think he’s god?? LOL –nooo. How can it be the judges fault?? They had her at the top of the leaderboard two weeks in a row! They did what they could. You want Len to stop pissing off Derek/Shawn fans? Bet that’s not how ya felt when it was going down, was it? 
Anyway, the producers, by lumping weeks 5 and 6 together with a total of three dance decreased the margins between dancers rather substantially. This, in turn, means that Kelly and Kirstie and the rest needed fewer votes in order to overtake Sabrina. Look at the two tables below. The first one are the percentages and number of votes needed for each competitor after ONE dance. The second one shows the percentages and number of votes needed for TWO dances – essentially having an elimination in Week 5 like normal.
Solo Dance, Week 5
Week 5, Total
As you can see, adding ONE dance to week 5 decreased the number of votes Kelly needed to stay over Sabrina by just under 5,000 votes. That’s more than some of the couples needed in total to pass Sabrina by the time all the dancing was done!!
Not only that, but it decreased Kirstie’s margin by 2,500 votes. These are significant differences. Sure, they didn’t have an elimination in week 5, but compare the numbers in the two tables above to the table all the way at the top of the post. Kelly’s margin went from more than 20k to less than 15k by including all three dances. If they had had an elimination in week 5, perhaps it would have been Kelly or Kirstie. They then would have used only one dance plus the bonus two points in week 6 to determine who went home. Based on the table below – which includes only Week 6 points – it still would have been Sabrina, I think.
Week 6 Only
The Margin is even smaller between Kelly, Kirsti and Sabrina when only counting week 6 because they scored everyone pretty high, with only 3.5 points (1.54 percent) between first and last place. HOWEVER, there is a slim possibility that Sabrina could have stayed over Emmitt, who was the low scorer of the night and thus had a MUCH larger margin to beat than he did when all scores were combined. Using week 6 numbers only, he needed more than 15k to stay over Sabrina – in all other scenarios he only needed less than 9k. Who knows? Another difference is Gilles – he went from a margin of less than 7k to one of nearly 11k. He beat the 7k, but would he be able to beat the 11k??
I’m of the opinion that nothing would have changed if they had had an elimination in week 5 and 6 instead of doing what they did. It’s interesting to look at how the adding of points affects all the margins, but in this particular instance Sabrina had already been “shockingly” eliminated in her original season. For that reason, I don’t think anything would have prevented that from happening this time.
Ya follow me? Or did I just confuse you even more?
Heidi, this is a fantastic post. I always understood your numbers posts but this one is loud and clear. Thank you! Now, if only my insurance policy is this clear…
I follow – brilliant!
Heidi, wow, I am totally in awe of your amazing analysis and I think you are some kind of a genius. And, I agree with your conclusions.
Thanks for the post. The way they combine the scores give the fans too much power in my opinion. Although Kelly was 10 points (or 12.7%) behind Sabrina on the judges’ scoreboard, she only needed to earn 1.5% more fan votes than Sabrina to stay alive. No wonder Bristol stuck around so long!
Thanks, this actually helped. People actually blamed Derek for the elimination? That’s hilarious! But why stop at Derek? They should have just blamed Tony while they were at it. Lol… some people…
Really good post. I hadn’t thought it through just how little the other contestants needed in votes to surpass Sabrina’s judges vote advantage. Put in that way, it really shows how little that advantage gave her. Add in the fact that in an All-Star season there are way more favorites of viewers to take votes away from Sabrina, and it becomes apparent that she wasn’t going to make the finals. I ironically thought she had a good chance for the finals simply because of dancing skill; I was wrong.
Well done.
I am not a numbers person, but I get this. This is becoming my fave DWTS site! Right after Annie Barrett’s Hidden Gems, of course!
I love when you explain things out like this. Thanks. A thought also, how much does the pro’s support play into this? Louis can’t be pulling in votes like Maks, so even if Sabrina and kristi had similar fan bases, Maks fans would likely help as they will support any celeb dancing with their favorite pro. Maybe Val has some second year glow and is starting to get some votes of his own to help Kelly. I know the pros make a huge difference in who I do or don’t vote for (ahhhem Cheryl…). Just a thought. Impossible to quantify but a thought nonetheless
Oh Heidi, you nerdy genius! Numbers don’t lie.
Funny, you don’t look like Derek (well I think you don’t given your female and your chest endowments are probably different than his…lol), you don’t sound like Derek when you talk…who the heck would think you were Derek…lol Thanks for the great post and explaining it all…as President Clinton would say “do the math”. You always do!!
It didn’t shock me with Sabrina going. I know she was at the top but I think sometimes people vote for the underdog and assume that a percent score is safe. Just too bad it wasn’t Giles, lol.
As for blaming Sandy, she left early in her original season. Just doesn’t have the fan vote.
Well, in comparison to some of the celebrities, I don’t think the Pros have that much impact. But respective to each other, clearly you are better off as a celeb if you get Derek as opposed to Louis, in terms of added votes. No disrespect to Louis (in this case
), but Derek clearly has the larger fanbase. So does Maks. So, if you’re a Shawn Johnson or a Kirstie Alley, Derek and Maks will help a little bit but won’t not tremendously. If you are Maria, or Lil Kim or Joanna Krupa, you want Derek as your partner badly – because you don’t have the fanbase that coincides with DWTS already so Derek helps alot. Make sense?
On one of the earlier afterbuzz shows (I think) one of the commentators mentioned that Derek was brilliant because he would choreograph such stunning dances that would break the rules and force the judges to give slightly lower points, which would stimulate the fans to vote for them much more….don’t know how true that is about Derek’s thought process, but if that was his game plan – it’s working. I think the problem with Sabrina was that she simply wasn’t interesting enough to vote for. As Eclectic said, you realize that the scores don’t really give you an advantage at all if you don’t have votes.
Wait a dog-gone minute!!! You mean Sabrina didn’t get eliminated because Karina picked Quickstep/Samba for Kirstie supposedly dooming her (KA) forever???????? Are you sure that Karina’s evil “I still want Maks”, so I’m gonna use strategy and not give Kirstie a dance with cha cha in it, isn’t really the reason Sabrina was eliminated???????
huuuuge sigh….
I’m following and I just love these! Thanks for putting this together.
And poor Derek! What kind of person would blame him? Nuts!
Listening to some of the post elimination video, I was listening to Louis, and kept shaking my head that he just doesn’t seem to understand how the numbers work on the show.
He said more than once, that when they and Apolo and Karina were at the top of the stairs, he kept waiting for Tom to say something like, “There isn’t REALLY going to be an elimination today, because of Sandy, and the east coast not being able to vote…”
Really Louis? You really thought there wouldn’t be an elimination? PH’s Numbers posts SHOW that she still wouldn’t stay around! IF they didn’t have an elimination, the (already high) number of points handed out would be higher, and the percentage of votes needed will decrease again. So, it would make it easier for her to leave.
Louis needs a PH Numbers lesson.
I think everyone on DWTS needs to look at PH’s number post. That way they will stop using the phrase ‘shocking elimination’.
Thanks for posting and doing all the number crunching. That’s a lot of work!
If we take these numbers and split in the two weeks, they aren’t that hard for the other stars to beat her.
PH, Great analysis and you couldn’t have put it any clearer.
Mo, DWTS will *never* stop using the phrase ‘shocking elimination’. They’re in the business of creating drama, and nothing is more dramatic than a ‘shocking elimination’.
I know they won’t. I just wished they would. I don’t think there has ever really been a ‘shocking elimination’, when you stop and think about it.
I really think Sabrina suffered from a multitude of things that prevented her from gaining a larger fanbase (much of which has been said already) –
-she didn’t have much of a “journey” in that she was already a great dancer
-a pro that has arguably one of the smaller fanbases
-while she seems like a sweet girl and I like her, her personality either wasn’t displayed enough or she just doesn’t have much more to offer us than what was shown. Compared to the all-star cast, that’s just not enough for the people that vote for the person they “like” the best, which I think is way more than people that vote for the best dancer
-Great scores with people thinking she was safe, so all of the swing votes went to the other celebs
All of this adds up to a celeb that has a lot of people that like her well enough, but not nearly as much as other celebs so frankly I don’t think it’s shocking whatsoever that she was eliminated. I predicted that she’d be gone early-middle, and while I truly feel bad for her I think it was inevitable soon anyway.
First, I want to say that I love this site!!! Fantastic job by everyone involved. Thank YOU!
I wanted to comment on Sabrina’s elimination, because I think that it had less to do with her not being able to win viewers over and more to
do with the scheduling/voting system implemented these last two weeks.
Since Sabrina had the smallest pre-show fan base and has been in the public eye less than the other top 8 contestants, she more than
anyone else, needed a level playing field to survive. To stay off elimination she needed a combination of much higher judges scores and a much larger number of votes from viewers without a predetermined favorite – those that WATCH the show and THEN vote for the team they think danced the best. When the judges scored everyone so close, even with perfect scores, it really hurt her chances.
Also, the voting system for the last two weeks gave an advantage to those with larger existing fan bases. First, there were the two voting days for week 5. The objective viewers I know are more inclined to only vote with telephone lines. Rabid fans go crazy creating multiple email accounts to vote online – there were a lot of “I voted for you 500 times” comments on many star’s Twitter pages. The more rabid fans you have, and the more days you give them to vote, the less important the phone votes become. What is the point of only allowing 8 phone votes, when you can have unlimited internet votes?
Then you have last Monday, and the storm preventing a large market from watching and voting, here again this helped those with the largest pre-show fan bases. The “I didn’t have power but I voted for you till my cell phone died” stories point out how those that needed to win actual VIEWERS over were at a disadvantage from the storm.
I came into this season without a favorite and didn’t really know anything about Sabrina (I didn’t watch season 5), but her week 2 quickstep impressed me more than almost any ballroom dance I have seen on this show, and she won me over. While I do think that the odds were against her making the finals, I watch this show for the dancing and wish that the producers would do more to insure that the best dancers stay around the longest. If I want the remaining good dancers to survive I guess I am going to have to learn how to “power vote” :/
Thanks again for all you do!!!
As Heidi and Courtney said, you can’t blame the storm. The storm would have resulted in all the couples losing votes. The whole eastern block wasn’t voting for Sabrina. If you read what PH wrote, then you can see very clearly what the reason was. Sabrina just wasn’t getting votes.
And, remember, just because you vote for good dancers doesn’t mean everyone else does. By now people have their favorites. They may not necessarily be the best dancers though.
Did anyone noticed that the bottom four(in scoreboard) were the team Gangnam Style? I think they got more votes than ever because of that dance. I don’t think it was a great dance, could be much better but it was still entertaining and people love Gangnam Style so much. So, I think, they were lucky to get Gangnam style as their song.
I don’t think Sabrina’s fanbase was too small. I think most people thought she was safe(same as Audrina’s elimination) and they voted for their other favorites. And Kirstie was in bottom two previously, which means fans voted a lot more for her than before. And for Kelly, I do think she’s getting a lot of votes. And the only time Kirstie couldn’t beat Sabrina and was in bottom two was when she needed 17.100 votes per million, not 9.600 votes.
Sabrina didn’t deserve to go home. She was one of the best dancers on the show. But it wasn’t shocking or it didn’t mean that she was getting a few votes actually. I’m blaming the judges about Sabrina’s exit. I wish they would score Kirstie, Gilles, Shawn and Emmitt more accurately. Perhaps Sabrina would be safe then.
Good analysis and explanation. However, I loved watching Sabrina dance and voted hard for her, so no matter the logic, to me, the elimination was still shocking and painful.
Nice try, Eagle, but no. EVERYONE got more votes than Sabrina. Everyone. By how much we don’t know. For all we know, Kelly barely squeaked by Sabrina but Shawn and Apolo could have blown both of them out of the water. We have no way of knowing. You will notice that Team Call Me Maybe were the top 4. All you can say about that is that Derek and Shawn picked the better team.
Apolo, Melissa and Shawn didn’t need many votes to beat Sabrina. I’m trying to figure out why bottom four got more votes than Sabrina. And I think Gangnam Style is one of the reasons. Agree or not, this is what I think. It got more than 1.500.000 hits on YouTube.
If youtube views counted for anything, Maria would have gone farther than fifth place. Youtube views don’t count as VOTES. Believe what you want, but Sabrina was never destined for the finals – she couldn’t make it past week 6 when she wasn’t up against all stars. I don’t think Melissa is either (unfortunately) and that has nothing to do with a craptastic team dance. But if that helps you sleep at night, have at it.