Odds on "American Idol?" Odd.

According to an online sports book that somehow got hold of my email address, grey-haired good ole boy Taylor Hicks is favored to win this season's "American Idol" competition. Hicks is a whopping 1-2 favorite over local sweetheart Katherine McPhee, who almost got bounced a couple of weeks ago. Katherine's odds of winning are currently set at 17-10; earlier in the competition, she was considered something of the favorite, but, well, let's just say her dancing skills haven't done her any favors.

Judge Simon Cowell hasn't been much of a fan of either McPhee or Hicks, whom he's regularly dismissed as a karaoke singer, pretty much the most damning descriptive for an aspiring star. Cowell, of course, has in the back of his mind the quandary of how he'd make Hicks a star if he wins. At the same time, to date only one "AI" winner has been a guy, so the show is likely itching to gain a bit of balance re: gender. McPhee, on the other hand, is telegenic and charming, but despite a show-stopping rendition of "Over the Rainbow," is apparently perceived as not having lived up to her initial potential.

Question: What kind of idiot would actually bet on this kind of competition? Though there are strict rules forbidding networks of manipulating TV competitions, these things can nonetheless be massaged, particularly in terms of scheduling the theme weeks, which play into some contestants' strengths and others' weaknesses, keeping some contestants on the show longer than they might have ordinarily and prematurely short-circuiting others' aspirations. 62 percent of those who have bet on the show this season have already lost their "investment."

Meanwhile, another email that traversed my inbox underscored how much academics enjoy using the show as a sociological petrie dish. Jungmin Lee, assistant professor of economics in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, found viewers in later rounds of the show voted along racial lines.

"At the sixth week, when there were only six contestants left, race preferences heated up relative to voting," Lee stated in the press release, which added: "He found that when viewership and voting were taken into account simultaneously, the connection between black viewers and black contestants was particularly strong. With relatively more black viewers, black contestants were less likely to be eliminated. For instance, an increase in the number of black households by slightly more than half a million decreased by 32 percent the likelihood that a black participant would be voted off the show. Lee noticed this phenomenon had a multiplier effect, as more black viewers tuned in the following week."

And this matters why, exactly? The press release goes on: "His study is part of a large body of research that demonstrates how preference based on race affects economic and labor markets." Economic and labor markets? Snooze. No wonder he brought "American Idol" in to jazz his study up.