http://www.wineandcheesecrowd.com/unlocked/
Unlocked
By Ben Holcomb on July 15th, 2012
There’s a lot of crappy TV shows on cable today. A cursory peruse through the info guide on your DVR will bring up shows on extreme couponers, families preparing for the apocalypse, hoarders, and just about any other sick combination of people with missing synapses that you can conjure up.
Storage Wars isn’t one of those shows. In fact, it’s one of cable’s greatest gifts in the last half-decade, a reality show with just enough reality to make us feel smart and just enough theatrics to please our idle minds. Ratings can attest to this. Hell, A&E’s practically turned in to the Storage Wars Network, filling up timeslots between marathons with the perfect dose of inane minutia to allow religious followers time to live good & decent lives.
It’s so good, the only trash you’ll ever find on Storage Wars is in the lockers.
It’s not small screen’s Van Gogh, but then again its supporters would never stake that claim. It walks the fine tightrope between brevity and gravity with such ease that you never stop to question the mechanics behind the velvet curtain. And in a way, what else can you ask for in a reality show?
At the heart of the sleeper hit is a premise simple enough for a 2-yr old to swallow. 4 people (1 couple) bid on delinquent storage lockers in hopes of turning the remnants inside into profit. The catch? They kind of sort of can’t actually go into the locker, so the show seeps with conjecture. That’s it.
For the same reasons Jeopardy works, Storage Wars plays to the viewer’s innate desire of joining in on the fun1. We see what they see, we can predict what they’re trying to predict, and in 22 minutes our guesses pay off in a quick 10 second slide detailing each unit’s eventual payout. With Storage Wars, you know what you’re getting, and what you’re getting is mint.
There are better rivalries on this show than the mid-90’s NBA, more marital strife than an episode of Maury, and more drama in the heat of one auction than a two-week Kardashian vacation.
And behind all the lights, cameras, and poorly narrated cutaway interviews, the true reason Storage Wars resonates with viewers on such a visceral level, is that these are real people, with human issues, trying to make a living with their own money. With each passing episode we’re witnesses to the ebbs and flows of the Middle-American lifestyle, albeit the kind of one that has camera crews following you. And I’m not talking Jon & Kate Plus 8 fluctuations, I’m talking hole in the wall consignment shop Middle America. The kind of stores that give out contact headaches just driving past as your brain attempts to figure out how those bills get paid. One scene inside Brandi Passante and Jarrod Schulz’s consignment shop, quarter-filled shelves of beanie babies and Macho Man Randy Savage Commemorative Plates2, is all you need to realize that what happens at these storage auctions has a pretty serious impact on these people’s lives.
It’s so good, the only trash you’ll ever find on Storage Wars is in the lockers.
The personalities are caricatured, sure, but even the cheap writer’s staff touch-up on these bidder’s personalities isn’t enough to cover up the base layer of humanity that eventually seeps on through. Darrell Sheets has some marital problems. No 280 pound man wearing that many wife-beaters is in a stable relationship. Shirts like that don’t get names like those from a reputation of monogamy and clean rap sheets3. There’s no arguing Dave Hester knows what he’s doing, and is damn good at it, but the loneliness of that guy practically oozes off the screen and in to your living room like that chick from The Ring. And your guess is as good as mine on what’s going on inside the wacky mind of Barry Weisz. He says he’s in it for the collectibles, but my guess is the show’s producers have done everything in their power to keep him from hearing about EBay. But then again maybe he’s not the type of guy that likes spending money efficiently…or even on things that interest him more than two minutes before buying it.
There have been 64 episodes to date, almost 3 seasons worth of auctions, and a boatload of profit margins. If you’ve seen more than 10 minutes of the show, you’ve surely wondered how much money you can actually make in storage auctions. If the answers “a sh**load”, then why aren’t we all busting down the gates every Saturday morning at 9am? For one, the truth behind the vacant lockers is paved by broken dreams and general human despondency. So that part’s not too fun. And though the show quickly presents us with each bidder’s net gain/less statistic in 22 minutes, the actual period of time it takes them to sell a unit’s items is far longer. Have you ever moved a couch up or down a single floor? It’s a painstaking experience that last hours and drains stamina like an iPhone battery. Now imagine having to do that with an entire storage unit full of junk. And that’s ignoring the fact that most of the items in these units of any value carry with them some serious niche markets. Some 300-year-old music boxes might be worth $3000, but people aren’t busting down Wal-Mart doors to get to them.
Yet despite the fine print, there is still money to be made in storage units. Clearly. Some of the profit margins per episode are staggering. But which of the show’s main contestants is actually the best at what they do? And how much money are they actually banking? Life, when perceived through a certain lens, is always a game, and the bidders on Storage Wars compete on a weekly basis. The staff at Wine & Cheese studied the game film on all 5 of the show’s main characters, whipped up some excel spreadsheets, and dug deep to find the true financial numbers that all loyal Storage Wars fans have been long-pondering.
And don’t worry; Ron Jaworski took no part in this.
The first number of importance would have to be profit margin, or simply, how much players walk home with in their pockets after all is said and done. In three seasons, Dave Hester’s the clear leader in this category, taking home a respectable $257,600 in profit. Darrell Sheets is a distant second at $100,909, followed by Jarrod & Brandi at $88,853 and Barry at $68,164.57 (But, again, he’s in it for “the collectibles”).
While a basic profit margin analysis allows us the information of who’s making the most money, it doesn’t answer the main question every fan wonders when watching the show. The characters on the show are polarizing. You’re either a Dave guy or you’re not. Either you have the Yuuuuuuuuup hat…or the sound of his catchphrase causes your blood to boil. Everyone’s got his or her opinion on who’s the smartest buyer (I’m a Brandi guy myself…I’ve always thought she was a genius bidder held down by the tyranny of her pseudo-boyfriend-husband-same-shirt-wearing-beau Jarrod). But numbers don’t lie: Who really is the most consistent, pound-for-pound buyer on the show?
To find this number, you’d have to analyze profits on a dollar spent dollar earned basis. The adage of ‘it takes money to make money’ is felt heavily within the walls of these Southern California storage facilities. Dave Hester spent $80,940 over the course of 3 seasons-to-date, almost ten grand more than the next buyer. That type of investment seems to have paid off, as Hester’s $3.18 profit per dollar is the highest on the show. Again, Darrell Sheets trails at $1.76 profit per dollar, followed by Barry at $1.38 and the Dynamic Lovers Duo at $1.25.
But Jarrod and Brandi are an interesting microcosm. The pair seems to argue on just about every unit, unable to ever agree. When Jarrod finds a crappy unit with a shining safe in the background, Brandi seems to groan and shake her head. Likewise, Brandi’s feminine intuition is a source of constant annoyance to Jarrod, who seems to think there’s a sweet science to the art of appraising people’s trash. A deeper delve into the bidding of the two discovered that, although Jarrod can be pompous and ostensibly callous in his bids, over three seasons he actually comes out with a great $2.40 profit per dollar spent margin, far greater than his wife (without papers, did I mention that?) Brandi, who recorded an embarrassing $0.75 per dollar spent profit. With Brandi, she might as well be a blue vest greeter at Wal-Mart; it’s probably the same salary.
The latter stat was shocking to me, having watched the show religiously from the start. Brandi just gives off the vibe that she’s the brain of the operation, always struggling to keep “Pinky” in line. But I think we all owe Jarrod an apology. Despite the fact that he never wears his sunglasses over his eyes, Jarrod has significantly more neuron movement than I gave him credit for. Couple counseling may be necessary by season four if the pair wants to close the gap between their profit disparities.
The numbers speak for themselves. But there’s also more to the story. In season one, Dave Hester struck gold on a $300 bet, bringing in $90,000 in original Elvis Death newspapers. Without that unit, the number would surely be different. Similar examples exist for Jarrod and Brandi, who respectively hit the jackpot and whiffed on their own major bets. But at the end of the day, the Storage Wars Power Rankings come out somewhat predictably:
Dave Hester 4
Darrell Sheets 5
Barry Weisz 6
Jarrod Schulz 7
Brandi Passante 8
There’s still time for those on the bottom of the totem pole to make up for past mistakes. If ratings are any indication, the show won’t stop producing episodes until Barry’s dead, Darrell’s in jail, and Jarrod and Brandi’s children are bidding on their own lockers.
And I’ll be in a wheelchair, running cost-benefit analyses on every last one of them9.
And you get all that without the painfully awkward bio speeches! You know, the ones where Trebek looks like he’s plotting different ways to kill himself as contestants ramble about the funniest experience they had at a Ramada Inn one time? ↩
the kind of store where you feel like you’re under a microscope from the minute you enter. The owner just stares at you as you walk around, looking at things you know you don’t need. But the look on the worker’s face makes you think, maybe, just maybe your refusal to buy something might mean Ramen noodles for the 10th night in a row for little Jimmy. ↩
I’m being rough on Darrell here, but the guy has admitted he’s going through a rough divorce multiple times, so I’m not exactly outing him. And whenever someone readily admits they’re going through a “terrible” divorce, you know it’s messy. ↩
Worth a cool $3,000,000 according to Celebrity Net Worth.com. ↩
Worth $1.5 Million according to Celebrity Net Worth.com. Although it should be noted that the notoriety of the show has resulted in quite a bit of money from A&E themselves in the form of salaries. Odds are residuals are on their way as well. ↩
Worth $9,000,000 according to Celebrity Net Worth.com. Made a fortune in produce apparently, which would explain why he’s always out of his gourd. ↩
Worth $700,000 according to Celebrity Net Worth.com ↩
Also worth $700,000, though I’m assuming it’s from the same pile. Be careful Jarrod, if you take your eye off that money for a few seconds she might just turn it in to $525,000. ↩
One last tidbit that might make you question your faith in humanity. That annoying guy with the weird lackey girl that runs the auctions? Yeah, apparently he’s worth $3.5 Million. Sleep on that one. ↩
Share This Article
