J. J. Watt $33 Million, ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/130 Celebrities $44 Million

In this corner, we have J.J. Watt’s YouCaring Campaign for Hurricane Harvey relief in Houston and surrounding environs. He raised (as of this writing) just shy of $33 million.

In this corner, we have ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, George Clooney, Beyonce, Oprah Winfrey, Justin Bieber, Stephen Colbert, Stevie Wonder, Tom Hanks, Barbra Streisand and Cher in a national telethon to raise money for Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma relief. They raised $44 million. (For comparison’s sake, the 2010 Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy telethon, the last full 21 hour one and the last one Jerry Lewis presided over, took in just shy of $59 million.)

So the combined forces of the four major networks and 130 celebrities managed to raise 1/3rd again as much as J.J. Watt did with a Twitter account.

This is not to denigrate the telethon. Their heart was in the right place, and I’m sure most of the money will be put to good use. But it does rather suggest that the days of telethons as efficient fundraising vehicles has now passed…

(More background on Watt’s campaign here.)