The Melodifestivalen final takes place this weekend as a somewhat disappointing Eurovision national final season draws to a close. If the betting markets are anything to go by, we are looking at a two-horse race between Cornelia Jakobs and Anders Bagge.
According to the latest Smarkets probabilities, Jakobs stands a 57% chance of flying the Swedish flag in Turin, with Bagge at half that on 28%. Among the outsiders, Klara Hammarström sits at 8% and LIAMOO at 5%, with just a 2% chance that someone else takes the crown.
Starting with the two outsiders, Klara Hammarström’s already slim chances have been all but extinguished by the Swedish broadcaster’s decision to have her open the show, though she should still record high scores among the younger age groups which tend to vote for songs earlier in the running order (contrary to the general public).
Likewise, while LIAMOO may finish in the top two with the international jury, his streaming numbers simply do not look good enough for a youth-oriented song like this to amass a hefty televote score.
That leaves us with the two frontrunners. On one hand we have a full package in ‘Hold Me Closer’ that could help break Sweden out of its burgeoning reputation for well-produced but inauthentic entries that have brought diminishing returns on the Eurovision stage over the last few years.
On the other we have ‘Bigger than the Universe’, a decent song with a recognisable melody that relies massively on the popularity of its performer. The division between these two entries will be on full display on Saturday night when international juries may generously reward Cornelia Jakobs while the Swedish public propels Anders Bagge to a televote win. We could end up with a split result that looks something like this:
Despite a likely televote deficit, Cornelia Jakobs’ jury score should ensure she maintains a lead over Anders Bagge when all votes are counted. ‘Hold Me Closer’ is the worthy favourite and will make Sweden a serious contender for its seventh Eurovision title if it wins on Saturday.
Patrick Flynn is an analyst at Smarkets. Smarkets is a betting exchange (also known as a prediction market), where odds move based on customers’ betting and trading activity, rather than being opaquely set by a bookmaker trying to maximise profits. You can follow him on Twitter @patrickjfl.
Image of Cornelia Jakobs by Jonatan Svensson Glad is licensed under CC.
Why? She can’t sing!
Wow this is interesting! Looking back at this after the show is over. They were spot on about Cornelia and Liamoo with the jury vote, as well as Cornelia and Anders for the people’s vote. However, they vastly overrated Klara for both the televote and jury vote. This just goes to show that while streaming numbers can count for part of the picture, it’s certainly not the whole picture. I also think that as a whole, all the betting odds strongly underrated Medina and overrated Klara.
It feels like these polls underestimate how popular Bagge is here. There is no way hes chance of winning is 22%
I completely agree. Sadly this reminds me of MGP 2021 where it came down to Keiino vs. Tix and he won, even though Keiino were at like 52% and Tix at only 15%. This looks like a very similar situation.
It’ll be a male singer. And in the case that a female singer wins then the contest will end up being cancelled. Call me superstitious.
What makes you think they will cancel it if a girl wins?
The mamas (three female singers) did win just two years ago. Don’t think your theory holds up.
And the contest got cancelled
And..
I feel like someone else will win and everyone will be complaining again ….
I truly believe this is going to happen
I really hope “Liamoo/Medina/Cazzi/Klara Eurovision Song Contest 2022 live performance”
Regardless of the bookies, I still want Medina to win
Gorgeous singing
IMHO MF 2022 should stop right now! This is the song Sweden NEEDS to pick up for Turin. Finally something genuine and authentic and driven by music and not staging. I sincerely hope this passes through and it would increase overall quality to ESC 2022 and could bring a good result to Sweden, but this time deservedly.
No offense but this song is as authentic as a pizza without any toppings. It doesn’t taste bad, but there’s no flavor at all
You prefer Anders of Cornelia so that already says enough about how serious we should take you ?
Well you clearly don’t know anything about Italian cuisine and the art of making pizza, my friend, and this is all what I have to say to you on this.
Klara has 2x views on her performance over Cornelia.
That’s because she competed in the last heat and they posted all live performances of heats shortly after sf4.
Shuffla had double the views than Dance You Off and we know how that ended
I’m rooting for Cornelia. As a swede who know the swedish televoters though, I’m not counting on a landslide win in any direction. Klara might be the first entry of the night but she can still take the victory. The song is alright and many love her. Bagge will do better with the juries than people think. It’s so commercial and radio friendly – juries love that. He’s also still in this with lots of fans. What works against Cornelia is she’s no household name and it’s her debut (I think?) in melfest. Her performance isn’t as strong as for… Read more »
Hold me Closer is amazing as are the other Cornelias songs. Just listening to her now. Klara is really good too, but Cornelia to me is a lot better.
Tusse was unknown last year and still managed to win. Its not like unknown can’t win. Anna Bergendahl was unknown too when she won. And Cornelia is not new. She was in Love Generation though most people don’t know that. As a Swede I would be proud with either her or Klara. With Bagge not so much..
Tusse and Anna were unknown before Melodifestivalen?? Tusse won Idol and whilst Anna didn’t win Idol a lot of people enjoyed her for her genuine personality and her unique voice. They were definitely known before and they definitely won Mello because of their loveable and friendly images/personalities. The most anonymous/unknown winner, looking back at the past 10 years, is probably Frans which still was quite known from his song about Zlatan.
It was their debut and they were not established artists with fanbase at the time. Same with Robin Stjernberg. So debuts can win. Even Anders Bagge would be a debut though he has fans
You’re solely talking about their careers within Mello which makes no sense, because you can have “fanbases” before you perform in Melodifestivalen. Mello did not create their careers, they were already famous with a lot of support before even competing. It might’ve been their Mello debut, but they were the furthest from “unknown” or “unestablished” – they had huge support from the public, just like Anders this year. Robin won on his second try and he still didn’t win as a clear favourite, mostly because 2017 was such an ambiguous year. Yes, it’s not impossible for lesser known artists to… Read more »
…and Loreen…
Man, this is so confusing! We have no idea who is going to win (although I think that’s good, atleast it’s not that predictable) My winer is obviously Cornelia, but I’ve had my doubts about that. Worst case scenario would be Anders winning, unfortunately I can see that happening. And why is Theoz sooo overrated? First time I listened to it, I thought it was good and very Axel Schylstrom, but that’s it. Yeah, he’s famous, but his song isn’t that great. I still remember girls screaming when they announced his name as a qualifier in Melfest. I have no… Read more »
I still believe Cornelia could win Eurovision if selected . Overall 2022 is currently still a weak year. For me it could be Sweden ( if Cornelia) or France to win the title .
France? lol with that song they will be bottom 5 this year.
People said the same about shum . It wasn’t my personal taste but people latched onto it
France? So bad for winning girl pls
It’s sweden, probably something diverse will steal the victory again.
Ahhh.. my gut is telling me that Cornelia won’t do as well with the juries as we hope/think she will and that someone like Klara probably will get good enough points from both televoters and the juries to win. Bagge will come out on top with the televoters (though not with the juries), but Klara will probably get 2-3 and that will be enough for her to win. Cornelia might end up coming 3rd with mid-points from both voting groups.
I’m rooting for Cornelia, but I feel like a lot of us will be let down on Saturday unfortunately.
Problem with Klara is that she is first. That usually only is enough to get voted from the young. But the rest of the groups tend to vote for later songs.I think her points won’t be as high with older groups..
Personally I don’t think starting positions matter, especially when there’s only 12 songs competing. Opening the show is not a always a bad thing and it can actually have the opposite effect by it creating an impact on all the viewers early on which makes the songs later on appear weaker and less interesting. It depends on how well she performs on Saturday. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think we should count her out just because of her starting position. She may not win the older age groups, but I think she’ll get some decent points from them… Read more »
I think only Cornelia and Bagge have wide appeal for all groups. Cornelia might not get high from the youngest group but people above 10 could appreciate it since they listen to Lana Del Ray and billie Eilish and all.
Klara I doubt has wide appeal, it’s more of a young song..
Again Swedish pple hyped Cornelia … and we all know what happened with Felix Sandman, Yohio, Ace, Oscar or Hanna Ferm or Dotter 🙂 International juries are key – especially this Year – Its quite interesting mix of countries 🙂 If u watch how these countries were voting in previous year – u can see that even jury voting will be mix – and not only Anders or Cornelia 🙂 … Everyone has a chance and if Robins won in 2013 and 2017 or The Mamas in 2020 everyone else can too this year 🙂
Apart from Dotter no one of them were really hyped here in Sweden. Abroads maybe but no one here talked about Hanna Ferm. Oscar? Zia? Nope, Frans all the way that year.
And yes we have already said there won¨t be a landslide win. It will be tight, every point counts..
Rly? I was living in Sweden and hype was about Franz, Moly, Ace, Oscar and Hanna 🙂 Sweden is not only Stockholm but also Malmö, Lidkoping, Smögen or Vanesborg 🙂
Well that year Frans was the hype. No one really thought anybody else would win. It was more interesting guessing who would be runner up and third rather than first..
And I live in Jönköping, not in Stockholm
Looove Jönköping! 😀 yes – we will see but i am prepared for Anders actually 🙁
Vad får dig att tro att Cornelia inte blir dom yngres favorit??? Om du läser kommentarer på Insta och FB så är det mest äldre som hejar på Bagge och på Cornelia är det flera olika åldrar.
Skrev ju att jag tror hon får poäng av alla grupper men tror inte den yngsta gruppen placerar henne så högt. Men alla från 10 år och uppåt kommer nog rösta på henne. Jag menar även 10 åringar lyssnar på Billie Eilish och Lana Del Ray så varför skullle de inte lyssna på någon som Cornelia som inspireras av dessa artister?
3-9 gruppen tror jag är den enda grupp som inte ger henne högt men inte heller hos de får hon lägst tror jag..
I think Tone, Liamoo and Medina are also in the game 🙂
Very proud to be Swedish right now, which is rare since we sent the exact same guy for 4 years straight.
And if we send Anders, it will be the 5th year straight..
Good that someone actually says that!
The Mamas song was the same? Robin had funk pop song, Ingrosso modern funk pop song and stage, Lundvik had a gospel, The Mamas too, Tusse had message pop song. Every year was different but maybe same with pop element and Its Ok – Ukraine, Armenia or Albania are sending same type of song and nobody is complaining …
I think he means it was all polished slick pop sound.Yes difference yet the same. If you look at the televoting we haven’t done better with voters than jury since 2016. If we continue to send the same we won’t even crack top 10 any time soon. My Swedes need to realise Europeans are tired of clean polished acts, they want grittier.
And The Mamas should be excluded since we din’t have ESC that year..
Well people are always tired – then they do not need to watch it – it is not obligatory 🙂 People still complaining regarding the Sweden – even if they would have send Joik every year ….
I appreciate that Cornelia lyrically is way more complex than most Melfest entries which tend to be very repetitive. I have no sense if the heat for Cornelia is real or if it’s just manufactured by the foreign Eurovision fans who are looking for something different from Sweden than what we typically get. I mean, since 2000 the only ballads Sweden have sent have been Undo (the 7th entry from a very established and beloved artist) and it’s only non-qualification, “This is My Life”. Good on Cornelia if she can win but we can just be left with very bitter… Read more »
The Mamas also, also guys in 2007
Whoever wrote this article is my new favorite person because not only did they use statistics to demonstrate their point, but the shade in the writing is the best (“Somewhat disappointing Eurovision national final season…”, “a decent song with a recognizable melody that relies massively on the popularity of its performers”
The objective point of the article is to make money. The shade will be intentional for that purpose but I can’t quite yet work out why.
Yeah, I noticed that too. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a biased wiwibloggs article. Still, I’m not complaining, Cornelia’s song is indeed better than what Sweden’s been sending to Eurovision the last four years. I wouldn’t necessarily call this Eurovision season ‘disappointing’, but I have to admit that 2021 was one of the best Eurovision years ever (it was also my first) But I never understood why everyone pays a lot of attention to the odds, we’ve seen that most of the time the actual results are totally different.
Wow well this was a strongly slanted article! I personally have enjoyed this national final season. It has many ups and downs, but that’s nothing new. Am I in a minority here?
And PS about Melo. Cornelia definitely deserves to win. Have rooted for Klara since she was announced and think another upbeat song at Eurovision this year would be good. My dark horse….. Medina, bit random, but is the kind of song I could imagine Turkey making a comeback with and making splash on the scoreboard, it’s a real catchy euro bop!
This season is turning into 40% groups outcrazying each other, 40% sad ballads, 10% ethnic bangers, 5% woman washing hands and 5% Ireland
Ireland is definitely the only “normal” entry this year lmao
I think the article *might* be over-estimating how Anders is going to do in the televote. I agree that he’s probably going to landslide every age group from 30 upwards but the point estimate here assumes he’s going to be 2nd-3rd with the three younger categories, too. I think he might be lower than that. Oh and don’t assume a huge jury lead for Cornelia. Some of the Melfest international juries do strange things. In 2020, six different songs received 12 pts from the 8 jurors and in 2021, four different songs (in a year where Tusse was said to… Read more »
I doubt he will get 12 from all groups. Defintely from the older groups but doubt the younger groups, including the 30 group will give him highest.
Anders will get 12s from all The agegroups beside 16-29 and maybe 30-44. Just have to look at swedish social media to see it. Cornelia need to have a atleast 20+ points more then Anders from the jury if she is going to win. Klara is not as popular as you think. She will not get more pointa then Cornelia/Anders.
If you look at comments on social media Bagge gets mostly positive comments from aunts and olders while Cornelia gets spread out from all. I doubt he will get 12 from all groups. I can’t see the youngest groups giving him 12, they probably give it to Medina or Klara
It doesn’t matter tho if he gets 8 or less because cornelia is going to get even lover. I can’t se any chance of cornelia getting higher votes from the youngest group or 45+. The people commenting on Anders is not 60+ it’s more like 45+ in general. And as a person who’s betting a lot can say that this winner odds is not right at all. Her winner chances are not that big against Anders.
Oh I can see Cornelia getting votes from all groups. Even the youngest even if they give her low. She has support from a varied group where as Bagge doesnt have anyone younger than 50 supporting him..
Probably Anna will get higher marks from international juries than expected.And Medina ,Theoz,and Klara will get higher marks from televote than expected.So noone can predict who will win.
I think Cornelia is a little bit overrated. For me she is the best of this Melodifestivalen, but I don’t think it can win Eurovision.
No probably not, but will definitely take Sweden back to top 5 results, at very worst top 10.
She is Bulletproof 2.0
You better pick Cornelia Sweden..
I mean reset they truly need!
I have so many questions about odds, how do they work?
Surely the odds can’t be that far off, can they? I mean when they say Cornelia has that big of a chance what are they basing it on? Do they know Bagge is huge here in Sweden too? Because i think Bagge has far bigger chance to win than 28%. Is that 51% also including public vote?
Bettings odd are often presented, particularly on news outlets, as being the likelihood of an event happening. However, because betting odds are equally used for bookmakers to mitigate losses, it’s not that simple. Bookmakers lower the odds of an outcome based on betting activity…so if we bet large on say Theoz to win, the bookmaker would likely lower his odds going forward. His song didn’t get better or anything like that. It is purely in response to our betting activity. We could have insider knowledge or our bet could be indicative of a wave of Theoz support not yet seen… Read more »
So the more people say someone will win the bigger the odds will get?
Even so, knowing how beloved Bagge is here, it’s weird his odds arent bigger. Or that he is not leading the polls. Surely there has to be many people who think he will win? I guess polls, even if they are foreign based, takes in account who the Swedes are talking about and while Swedes do talk about Cornelia it¨s not like she is the only one..
The bet maker companies can loose a lot of money if they predict stuff wrong. So I guess they just understand that Bagge has no chance when it comes to the jury voting.
Exactly. So they can’t be to far off otherwise no one would ever bet again.
Cornelia is PERFECT, but I feel she won’t make it. People are underestimating Klara and she’s a huge success on YouTube and Spotify. She’s the full Sweden’s package. Cornelia is a “not Swedish entry”, an outsider, so I feel this won’t allow her to do good numbers in the televote even if she wins the juries. 🙁
Spotify doesn’t give you full picture however since it shuts out a huge part of the population. Spotify gives you a hint to what young people might go for since they use it the most, but here in Sweden no one over 55 uses Spotify. Or if they do it won’t be the latest hits they are looking for..
I think the juries will either go for Klara or Cornelia while voters will go for Bagge and Cornelia so we could have a compromise win where the winner is liked by both groups but not favourite by any of them..
I do still think Cornelia will pull it through but it will be close. No landslide..
I still hope for Liamoo
It’s seemingly between Cornelia and Anders, but as Polegend says, the juries will be a deciding factor. So, if they go for Cornelia, she might win. I hope so, as she’s my favorite. But if the juries put Klara / Liamoo first, Cornelia second, and Anders 5th/6th, and Anders wins the televote, then we might have an unpredictable upset in Klara / Liamoo winning. However, I’m still going with either Anders or Cornelia. I hope it’s her, but I do wish good luck to all of the participants. The final is stacked with nice songs.
Question: why do you say this was a disappointing Eurovision national final season? I’m very happy with the songs going to this years contest, and I felt some national finals had great songs.
Because lots of people have been bellyaching and complaining about how “bad” the national final season has been and not liking a lot of the NF winners.
I agree with you. This NF season has been approximately as good as any other recent one, and there are some amazing songs among the winning entries as well. Of course, there are some middle of the road ones too, but basically every year has them.
Except this year so many more countries opted to use a national selection again, which in many cases wouldn’t work any better than selecting internally. Germany, North Macedonia, Romania, San Marino, Ireland, Israel and Malta to name a few.
It just seems weird because most articles here are neutral facts, not opinion.
This whole article is surprisingly subjective. It openly says that Cornelia’s song is much better than Anders’. And even if I privately agree with that opinion, I am used to seeing articles being more neutral than that. Aside from ”Wiwi jury” and ”Editorials”, of course. Those are meant to be subjective.
It’s not though. It’s saying Cornelia has a bigger chance to win than Bagge. That isn’t the same as saying it is a better song..
It feels subjective in a way that it forms it. However, I do respect the author’s freedom to form it like this. Sometimes subjectivity can be welcome. It depends on the context.
I presumed the article’s subjectivity and emotive language was primarily because it’s authored by a representative from a betting website designed to incentivise gambling.
The article is by Patrick from Smarkets. The tone and writing style is generally what you’d get from a betting analyst. On a basic level, I do think it goes some way to explain why the odds are what they are for Melfest.
I personally found the national finals a bit disappointing because it felt like countries had good options but went with joke songs or underwhelming songs instead. For example: LUMA not winning over Disko even though it had massive international appeal. Tanxugueiras and Chanel were both good, but people were disappointed by the whole voting incidence and that it wasn’t in an underrepresented language. Same with Malta. Ritmu was in Maltese and had international appeal but they chose another female pop ballad.
The only upset here was Slovenia, which is btw the worst Eurovision entry ever. Chanel despite not being the fave of the selection, is the overall fave of this contest, while Emma Muscat was a pretty expected choice from Malta
Chanel is great but what is disappointing was how Spain essentially guaranteed her win by severely limiting the public say and giving most of the power to the judges. Emma’s song is just bland but a song in Maltese would’ve at least put something interesting to the table
I think people are overreacting because most of their NF favorites didn’t win
This is the song I’ve been playing the most from the whole National final season… so much so that in some ways I almost hope she doesn’t win and I have a fantastic song to myself. But if truth be told she deserves a ticket to Turin and a top 10 finish 🙂
She absolutely has to win, do I think she will walk the final? No.
Tbh I worry a bit, Klara has double views on youtube and does very well on spotify, Anders too.
It will be a crime if they dont give us Cornelia. Come on Sweden, pick right for a change :’)
I also would love Cornelia to win, but I’m still not sure if she can overcome Anders. I think it’s almost surefire that he’ll get 12pts from every age group and the televote like Tusse last year, so her hope is that it’s not super loved by the Juries. I think that’s a pretty good possibility, but by how much I’m not sure.
I’ll be watching with bated breath.
I doubt he will get 12 from every single group. I really do. I know many in my age group 30-44 who simply won’t vote for him..
The voting will be spread out, no clear favourite..
Cornelia would be a top ten prospect… But against Italy/Poland/Ukraine…not a winner.
i think back of the 2017 odds that had wiktoria as the surefire winner and then the international juries said NO and gave her 29 points in total. this year the international juries will be very decisive on who wins as well, so i’m not getting my hopes up. i fully expect anders to win the televote with 85+ points, but i also don’t expect the juries to give him more than 35 points. so whoever is 1st in the jury vote will probably get it.
You really think the juries will have him that low? I really hope that will be the case, but idk…he is a pretty well-known figure, which may influence them. I really hope Cornelia will win.
nobody outside of sweden knows who he is. they’ll just see him as a man decades past his prime with an awful song.
Juries won’t know who he is however. And even if they know who he is so what? Their job is to be objective and find the best song for ESC. That’s it
2017 was one of the years with the really bad televote systems in Sweden though, right? Basically, every song got clustered together and was put into a range of 30-60 pts. It basically made it so that the international jury vote picked the winner.
Yes “I can’t go in” was fourth in the televote but first in the jury so he won. We might see something similar this year, who knows
She wasnt surefire though. She had really low odds for a favourite, if I remember she had like 32% chance to win so even the odds were not sure. Cornelia is now at a stunning 53% chance of winning so it would be a huge huge upset if she doesnt win
GO ON CORNELIA!!! You deserve to win on Saturday! “Hold Me Closer” can bring Sweden’s 7th win! I honestly think this is the strongest Mello final for years, excellent line-up and I find myself bopping to most of them every day.
Klara Hammarström is my 2nd favourite followed by Liamoo, Anna Bergendahl & Faith Kakembo. I even like Anders but his song isn’t a winner and juries won’t respond to him, I can see Medina pulling a Top 3 or even win televote.
smells like a dotter-mamas situation. I hope Bagge doesnt still the victory from anyone because its a NQ
Idk why but I have this very strong feeling that Anders will win. I REALLY hope I’m wrong bc I hate the song. If cornelia wins she will have my favourite esc song of all time.
Jackpot. How Gambling Conquered Britain.
A new book by Rob Davies. Out now.
Even though Anders is a beloved Swedish figure, I still can’t see him winning overall. I think the juries will destroy him.
Voices was jury bait, I was more shocked the televoters loved it that much I still to this day don’t entirely understand why.
“Voices” was a more modern jury song. Bagge is more old-fashioned. And we know juries don’t like old-fashioned. Don’t think he will win jury vote
I can’t see him doing worse than 5th with juries. I can’t. Yes it is old-fashioned and cheesy but it is an anthem. If he ends up top 3 with juries not much will be needed for a win!
PLEASE LET THIS BE THE OUTCOME
This gives me hope, but I’ve been hopeful about a few NFs this year and most of them didn’t go how I expected at all… I’m not even gonna watch melfest because I’m too nervous
Klara underrated!
If Cornelia wins I’ll have found my personal ESC 2022 winner, c‘mon Sweden <3
Me too!