The rules to having good Big Brother jury management

Let’s talk about the rules of Big Brother jury management

The term “Jury Management” gets thrown around a lot when talking about Big Brother, but what does it actually mean? At the end of each season, the Final Two HouseGuests are questioned by a Jury of their peers about how they played the game.

To be worthy of winning Big Brother, you have to prove not only did you make big moves, but you did so while respecting your fellow HouseGuests. After all, nobody wants to vote for someone that treated them like dirt. So Jury Management essentially boils down to making the Jury feel good about awarding you $500,000.

Know your audience

In Big Brother 3, Danielle Reyes and Jason Guy formed a secret alliance that capitalized on the growing tension between members of the majority alliance, The Cartel. From there, they forged bonds with the house misfits Josh Feinberg, Marcellas Reynolds, and later, Lisa Donahue. At the root of it all was Danielle, who in the DR would try to emulate Big Brother 2 winner Dr. Will Kirby, explaining her moves with wit and conviction that quickly made her the villain of the season.

Although Danielle and Jason would maneuver their way to the Final Three, the two would find themselves getting separated when Lisa won Part 3 of the Final HOH competition and chose to evict Jason. Despite making it to the Final Two, the Jury would take issue with comments that Danielle had made in the DR and on the Live Feeds. Feeling that Lisa had made it to the end in a more honorable fashion than Danielle, the Jury decided to award Lisa the win.

Danielle is considered one of the greatest Big Brother players never to win, and her loss would prompt the producers to change the format of the game so that the members of the Jury would get sequestered upon their eviction. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that she made crucial errors that cost her the game. By far, her greatest error was not understanding the Jurors’ errors.

Big Brother is a social game. To survive week-to-week, the HouseGuests have to create social bonds to convince their fellow HouseGuests to keep them safe. However, to turn those social bonds into Jury votes, one must understand what their allies value in a winner of Big Brother.

Do they prioritize building a resume of big moves and competition wins over maintaining those social bonds? Will making big moves while risking making others look foolish leave the Jurors feeling bitter? These are the questions that all players must ask themselves, but few ever do.

As a result, a lack of self-awareness has left many a player finding themselves stumped by the Jury’s questions and devoid of remorse as they get asked to answer for choices they made in the game like Paul in Big Brother 19. If, like Paul, a player fails to understand the Jury’s criteria for selecting a winner of Big Brother, they will no doubt be caught by surprise when their opponent gets awarded the win over them.

Stack the jury with people who will vote for you

In Big Brother 20, Tyler worked his way in as the head of the Level 6 alliance and week after week orchestrated the evictions of the members of The Hive.

While each week, Tyler orchestrated massive blindsides that frequently left the members of The Hive scrambling to figure out who flipped, it undoubtedly left them feeling bitter. Unfortunately, although he paved the way for him to make it to the end, in doing so, his enemies ended up making up most of the Jury.

As a result, the vote did not end up in Tyler’s favor, although Haleigh would change her vote at the last minute. So how do future Big Brother players avoid the same fate? Stack the jury with allies rather than enemies. Of course, this is easier said than done.

For one thing, you don’t want to anger those most likely to advocate for you to win in the Jury House. For another, you don’t want to eliminate people that will keep you in the house too early because, if you do, you may not make it to the Final Two. What this really means is that you need to ensure the people you’ve sent off to the Jury House get swayed to vote for you to win.

If the Jury gets stacked with people who you know will vote with their heart rather than their head, your style of gameplay doesn’t lend well to that ideology, and you can get them out before the Jury phase, then do so. If it’s not possible, you’re next best option is to utilize your Goodbye Messages to describe your strategy in painstaking detail. By laying your cards out on the table, you increase the chance those opposed to you may respect the work you put in to get yourself to the end.

Go to the end with a goat

A scapegoat, aka goat, is a person who in a game such as Big Brother or Survivor is brought to the Final Two/Three because they have no chance of receiving votes from the Jury.

They can either be the strategic mastermind of the season who ticked off one too many people like Paul or a player like Victoria Rafaeli that found themselves sitting back and riding the coattails of other more capable players.

A player must have the self-awareness to know how they’d stack up against fellow HouseGuests in a Jury vote and plan their endgame accordingly. Being an underdog is great, but not if you’re sitting next to the top dog.

Next. Why you should be watching Audrey Middleton’s Sequester. dark

How would you fare on a season of Big Brother? What type of Juror would you be? Do you think Jury Management matters, or should the player with the best stats always win?

All seasons of Big Brother are currently available to stream on CBS All Access.

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The rules of Big Brother jury management

By Noah Mussay | Dec 7, 2020

Let’s talk about the rules of Big Brother jury management

Know your audience

Stack the jury with people who will vote for you

Go to the end with a goat