Make the Boring Parts Matter
Combine narrative stakes with rules that make quiet moments consequential
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
Jones treats entertainment as a combination of narrative design and incentive design. Before the event, create an understandable conflict, recognizable sides, and characters or teams people want to follow. During the event, identify the passages that normally look inactive and change the format so those moments affect a larger outcome. In CJI's team format, a smaller athlete merely surviving a larger opponent can protect teammates and become dramatic, even if little conventional action occurs. The story attracts attention and creates emotional investment; the rules then make every phase legible within that story. This approach does not require manufacturing constant action. It gives naturally quiet action consequences the audience can recognize.
Origin
Jones derived the model while promoting CJI, borrowing spectacle from professional wrestling and team survival dynamics from Sakuraba's Quintet format.
Core principles
- 01Audience investment begins before the event
- 02Sides, stakes, and characters give technical action meaning
- 03Rules can make survival and inactivity consequential
- 04A compelling format should reward behavior the audience understands
How to run it
- 1
Define the conflict
Express the event as a simple tension, rivalry, or question that gives the audience a reason to choose a side.
Pro tip The conflict should remain understandable to someone who does not know the technical details.
- 2
Build the cast
Introduce the athletes, teams, or participants as distinct characters with stakes in the outcome.
Watch out A storyline without credible participants feels manufactured.
- 3
Map the boring moments
Find the periods casual viewers experience as inactivity, confusion, or delay and determine why those moments currently lack visible consequence.
Pro tip Use feedback from non-experts, who see different dead zones than insiders.
- 4
Add consequential rules
Change scoring, team structure, time limits, or progression so success in a quiet phase materially changes the larger contest.
Pro tip Team consequences can make survival meaningful even when no one scores.
Watch out Do not create incentives that reward endless stalling.
- 5
Translate the stakes
Explain what the audience should watch for and why an apparently small moment matters to the team, rivalry, or final outcome.
Pro tip Commentary should connect technical detail to the narrative in real time.
In the wild
Jones said CJI 1 benefited from a clear story: CJI versus ADCC. Viewers could pick a side before understanding every exchange on the mat, which increased their investment in the competition itself.
→ A specialist event gained an accessible rivalry that attracted attention beyond individual matches.
In the last-man-standing team format, a much smaller athlete may be unable to attack a larger opponent. Because surviving can preserve the team, an otherwise quiet defensive period becomes suspenseful and strategically important.
→ The format turns a conventionally boring phase into a legible high-stakes contest.
Common mistakes
Relying on action alone
Even a technically excellent contest can feel flat when the audience has no reason to care who wins.
Adding spectacle without stakes
Entrances and production value attract attention briefly, but they do not make quiet competitive moments meaningful.
Rewarding visible inactivity
A rule change fails if it makes passive behavior optimal without linking it to an understandable strategic sacrifice.
Is it for you?
Best for
Promoters, producers, and product designers turning specialist competition into an accessible audience experience.
Not ideal for
Formats where safety, fairness, or technical validity would be compromised by changing incentives for entertainment.
From the transcript
“Anything's exciting if there's a story line, you know, like.”
“created this division and people were invested in picking a side. So we need to leverage story lines like that to invest uh people's time…”
“you can create a style of rules that somewhat makes the boring parts exciting. Just survival might mean that your team wins this uh series.”
From the episode
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