DWTS 11 Stat Class: Who has the Edge? Part 2

Hello! Here it is… my calculated rankings for the celebs this season. Mind you, unlike others on this site, these do not reflect my opinions, but rather a calculation that I am attempting to use to predict the placement of the celebs based on past data. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but it is fun to speculate nonetheless.

For a quick refresher for other bloggers’ opinions of rankings please see Heidi and Courtney’s (Part I and Part II) posts as well as John’s posts about the odds/competitiveness factor and the number of twitter followers for each celeb.

If you recall from DWTS 11 Stat Class: Who has the Edge? Part 1, I gave a breakdown of the professional dancers as they were place by attempting to normalize the average. Granted with a built in bias there is only so much that can be done.

Before I go through the individual celebs here is an idea of how each age group placed on average through all ten seasons of the show thus far from highest to lowest:
1.) Teens (ages 10 thru 19) – 2 celebs
2.) 20s (ages 20 thru 29) – 17 celebs
3.) 30s (ages 30 thru 39) – 48 celebs
4.) 60s (ages 60 thru 69) – 7 celebs
5.) 40s (ages 40 thru 49) – 27 celebs
6.) 50s (ages 50 thru 59) – 12 celebs
7.) 80s on up (ages 80 on up) – 2 celebs
Note: Florence Henderson is the first person to be on the show while in their 70s, thus there is no normalized average for that age group as of yet.

Now that we know which celebs will be participating this season and who their professional partner will be, it’s time to calculate and attempt to predict how the celebs would place in the upcoming season. First I will give an analysis and a little of my opinions belief of each celeb and how each of the three factors (Age, Primary Occupation and Professional Partner) either help or hinder them as individuals.

Brandy
Age: 31
Typically those in their 30s do reasonably well on the show. Trailing those in their teens, and 20s (is that really any surprise?).
Primary Occupation: Singer
Singers in general stay in the middle of the pack placing just out of the semi-finals but better than most of the worst dancers. Mya being the only one to break out of that middle-of-the-pack while Macy Gray exited earlier in her season. Singers also incurred the most pre-season injuries (Lil Romeo and Jewel)
Professional Partner: Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Prior to his Season 6 vacation, Maksim placed fairly well with his celeb, typically hitting the midway point (Willa Ford being an exception). However, aside from Erin, Maksim hasn’t done quite as well with his partners, then again they were both actresses. Brandy could find herself closer to the top half of the middle-of-the-pack group. She might even find herself in the semi-finals… but I’m not too sure about beyond that.

Jennifer Grey
Age: 50
Oddly enough those in their 50s, on average, has done worse than those in their 60s. Sympathy vote perhaps? Granted Jennifer recently turned 50 so she might still have a little bit of that spunk from those in their 40s, but even those in their 40s didn’t do as well as those as their 60s.
Primary Occupation: Actress
Actresses don’t really do well on DWTS rarely breaking the midway point. The ones that do break the midway point either were very popular or have some sort of dance experience or had picked up choreo before. Jennifer picked up choreography for the infamous last dance on Dirty Dancing, but that was over 20 years ago… they say that dancing is like riding a bike though.
Professional Partner: Derek Hough
Granted all this could be balanced out by the mere fact that her partner is Derek Hough. Right now he has the highest placement average of all the pros. Just adding the Derek factor into the equation… she her chances of getting into the semi-finals or more just went up.

Margaret Cho
Age: 41
Those in their 40s hit the midpoint of the competition trailing those in their 60s. Going beyond that depends on other factors as well.
Primary Occupation: Comedian
To me, I’ve known her more as a comedian than as an actress. So I’m placing her in the comedians group. Comedians in general have the worst finishing trends on DWTS, placing dead last on average.
Professional Partner: Louis van Amstel
However, Margaret could buck the trend like Niecy kind of did. After all they both have Louis van Amstel as their partner. Despite doing decently with other celebs in the past, Louis has stayed largely in the middle of the pack. So the question would be, would the Louis factor help Margaret like it helped Niecy? It’s up the viewer, and the GLBT community I think 😀

Audrina Patridge
Age: 25
Celebs in their 20s do rather well in the competition just behind those in their teens.
Primary Occupation: Reality TV Star
On the other side of this coin, Reality Stars in general hit the lower half on average. Those Reality Stars in their 20s have actually hit the midway point in competition… so… Audrina could be a surprise and goes up on the rankings.
Professional Partner: Tony Dovolani
And then there’s her partner. Tony’s been kind of up and down throughout his tenure on the show. With a ringer-type he does well (who doesn’t?) but with non-ringers, not so much. The other fact is that he has worked with two Reality Stars from opposite sides of the spectrum. So this partnership is a bit of a tossup.

Florence Henderson
Age: 76
Believe it or not this is the first time that DWTS has someone in their 70s. So there isn’t much material (ok not any) to work off of. So let’s look at those in their 60s and 80s. Those in their 60s tend to do a lot better than those in their 80s (who tend to finish towards the back of the pack).
Primary Occupation: Actress
And based off of some of the comments I made about actresses for Jennifer Grey, this is one that I don’t believe would get terribly far in the competition. But if everyone loves Mrs Brady, who knows? Maybe that star power would get her to the midway point.
Professional Partner: Corky Ballas
Corky has only been on the show once before and he placed seventh in a cast of thirteen partners, so there is no telling how he would do this time around. If the averages of the other two factors are any indication… he might have his work cut out for him.

Bristol Palin
Age: 19
Uh, this “known” person hits the prime age group. Those in their teens do rather well on average, and is it really any surprise as to why? They are young and malleable… theoretically 😉
Primary Occupation: Other
On the other hand… The “others” are known persons that don’t fit the stereotypical celebs/stars type. And those in this “others” group almost hit dead last on the ranks, just ahead of the comedians.
Professional Partner: Mark Ballas
Mark Ballas tends to falter the most with non-ringer types… the closest similarity being Kim Kardashian. But Bristol is young, she could theoretically win audience members over… Who knows? But the numbers tell me otherwise.

Michael Bolton
Age: 56
Please see Jennifer Grey
Primary Occupation: Singer
Please see Brandy. Though Michael Bolton is well known for a lot longer than Brandy has, plus his music has a wider reaching net. Most of his demographic (I’m assuming) intersects the demographic of the show so he may have that to his advantage.
Professional Partner: Chelsie Hightower
Now let’s add little Chelsie into the mix and now you have someone that could hit the midway point perhaps, and has a semi-decent chance of getting past that midway point…

Mike Sorrentino
Age: 27
Please see Audrina Patridge
Primary Occupation: Reality TV Star
Please see Audrina Patridge
Professional Partner: Karina Smirnoff
Basically the same as Audrina, only male. One main point though is that male reality stars fare worse on average than female reality stars. Karina, by contrast, has hit middle of the road pack status with her celebs in recent seasons. So unless he’s drop dead gorgeous he may hit the midway point. Personally between Mike and Karina it may be more the Battle of the Abs rather than Dancing with the Stars.

David Hasselhoff
Age: 58
Please see Jennifer Grey… Another celeb in their 50s? That makes it what? Three? Gee whiz people. It’s like they are desperately trying to create another John O’Hurley. But celebs in their 60s do better than those in their 50s. Well David is pretty close to 60, maybe he’d find himself just past the midway mark…
Primary Occupation: Actor
Anyway actors tend to do better than actresses (yes I ended up separating the two). There is just something about their charm and charisma that makes the older female demographic (I’m assuming here) just want to pick up the phone for them.
Professional Partner: Kym Johnson
And of course there is that beautiful blonde Aussie bombshell that has probably worked the most with male celebs in their 50s on up. She has had a decent track record and knows how to turn on the entertainment charm for the male celebs. This might be another Donny Osmond in the works… but David is no Osmond, David’s an actor that branched out while Donny was an entertainer ever since he could dance and sing. So David stands a good chance of making it past the halfway point… I don’t know about the finals though.

Kurt Warner
Age: 39
Please see Brandy. Although he’s closer to his 40s so you might also want to look at Margaret Cho for the age range commentary.
Primary Occupation: NFL
He’s not as known as some of the other ex-NFL players that has come through the doors. But after looking him up on Wikipedia it does seem like he has a following of sorts. Football players tend to do really well in the standings (ok, on average they hit the number one spot), and the younger they are the higher up the ladder they tend to get. So I’m expecting him to go past the midway point and quite possibly compete at least in the semis and if I really want to go out there he could go to the top two. But quarterbacks do the least amount of running which could work against him.
Professional Partner: Anna Trebunskaya
In the few seasons that she has been on she has placed second with an Olympian and an NFL player. This bodes well for Kurt… but being in the position of the “non-athlete” of the NFL doesn’t really help matters any, but time will tell.

Kyle Massey
Age: 19
Please see Bristol Palin.
Primary Occupation: Disney
He’s a Disney Channel star which automatically brings him votes. Add to that his age and possible fan base I could see him knocking on the semi-finals door… as for walking through? That’s a whole other story.
Professional Partner: Lacey Schwimmer
Lacey, Lacey, Lacey… she’s only been on the show for three seasons and she’s done all right, however Kyle isn’t the same strong Disney powerhouse that Sabrina Bryan was or even Monique Coleman. The series that most people would know (That’s So Raven) was so three years ago, and whatever he has going now isn’t as known either. But Disney related celebs have fared rather well… and we can’t discount the Disney power.

Rick Fox
Age: 41
Please see Margaret Cho
Primary Occupation: NBA
But there has only been one other NBA player and that was Clyde Drexler from waaaaay back when. So there isn’t much to go on (maybe I should do a breakdown by heights). If we expand from NBA players to athletes in general they typically do hit the midway point in the competition, after that it’s entirely up to them. But since Clyde never made it to the halfway point in his season could Rick do better? Who knows
Professional Partner: Cheryl Burke
With Cheryl Burke as his partner his chances just got better. Cheryl has had practice working with athletes from all walks of life, and has been in the top half of the casts in almost every season she has been on (Wayne Newton being a notable exception). Perhaps Rick would be able to get his wish and surpass Kurt Warner on the show?

Now that we know my thoughts on the factors and how they could affect the celebs, lets look at how the factors add up… here is my calculated ranking by elimination sequence:
Week 1.) Margaret Cho
No surprise here based on what we know, but I’m hoping she’ll do as well as Niecy did and go further.
Week 2.) Florence Henderson
A little surprised, but considering her age and her profession, the only thing that could help her go further is her fan base… she’s Mrs Brady afterall.
Week 3.) Rick Fox
With so little information about NBA players, this is the best that could be done, which doesn’t bode well for Cheryl Burke… could they still buck the trend? The jury’s out on that one.
Week 4.) Audrina Patridge
Well considering that both Audrina and Mike have similar circumstances coming into the competition, most everything relies on who they ended up getting as their partner. Since Audrina’s partner is Tony her chances of lasting in the competition is a lot lower than that of Mike.
Week 5.) Michael Bolton
Age is working against him, as well as being simply a singer versus an entertainer. This is going to depend largely on the voting audience unless he has some sweet moves that he has kept largely hidden from the audience.
Week 6.) David Hasselhoff
Same as Michael Bolton, with age working against him and technically being an actor rather than entertainer I’m not expecting David to last that much longer than Michael Bolton or vice versa.
Week 7.) Jennifer Grey
If Jennifer makes it past the midway point it would be primarily due to the sheer power of Derek Hough. Which is a good thing too, because he could bring out the best from her without (hopefully) resorting to iconic dances.
Week 8.) Mike Sorrentino
With Karina as his partner, Mike could do rather well, granted good eye candy is always a good thing as long as he could dance.
Week 9.) Brandy
As mentioned by others already, if Brandy gets far along in the competition it would be due to her age and sex appeal… but if she can’t dance then everything else is a moot point.
Week 10.) Bristol Palin
Don’t kill me!!!! Youth does it everytime and since we have only had two teens on the show and one won their season while the other got fourth place in their season then it stands to reason that teens could do well this time around.
Runner Up.) Kurt Warner
Really… this is no surprise considering history… and the power of Anna T.
Winner.) Kyle Massey
Again don’t kill me… he’s young and there have only been two teens on the show prior to this, plus he’s Disney… all Disney people have done well in their respective seasons. The only problem with this is that Kyle’s “big show” ended three years ago while other Disney related people had a current project that kept them current. So this to me can’t work… even though the numbers tell me otherwise.