Somebody new to comedy walks into the room, a little nervous, and you get to choose the first song of the night. That was the question on the opinion market: Seinfeld or The Office, which would you introduce to a new comedy fan? The music has stopped and the crowd has given its final answer. The Office (US) gets the first dance at 60% consensus, and Seinfeld stands by the punch bowl at 40%.

Where the crowd stands
  • The Office (US)60%
  • Seinfeld40%

It was a quick romance. Trading opened less than a day before the verdict, and 15 traders put $29,456 behind their opinions. When the chart starts, at Nov 3, The Office (US) stood at 50% and Seinfeld at 50%. From there The Office (US) moved between 41% and 60%, and the lead changed hands 1 time before the room settled.

Consensus over time
0%25%50%75%100%3 Nov, 16:543 Nov, 19:15
  • The Office (US) 59.7%
  • Seinfeld 40.3%

The search bars are humming with the word "office" right now, and I won't pretend to know why. Our research found no news behind it. What I can tell you is that this market wasn't a love-in. Two traders went against the crowd. One of them, Josh L, was selling The Office (US) and said: "the more i looked into it the more obvious it got, so i sized up." The other, Nicole, who backed Seinfeld, wrote the kind of line I'd play at 3am: "the data whispers and the crowd shouts, im listening to the whisper."

Here's my opinion, sung softly into the mic. The crowd went with The Office (US), and that's not a sin. A finish of 60% against 40% is a clear win, but it isn't a landslide. On the official tally, the whisper lost to the shout. Some love songs are written by the people who lost.

This market is closed: The Office (US) got the first date with the newcomer. The bigger argument isn't settled, though, and it gets louder every time someone new asks what to watch. If you think the crowd got it wrong, or right, the next round of this debate is waiting in the opinion markets. Come join a market and put your money on the show you'd play first.