I understand why Donald Trump and reality-television wunderkind Mark Burnett have decided to split up the teams into two distinct camps for the third season of The Apprentice. I found it apparent from watching the show last night that pitting the educated business scholars against those who earned their degree equivalent in the gritty real world makes for good television in the gimmicky realm of content programming. Book smarts. Street smarts. Cute.
We know where the public stands. On General Electric's (NYSE:GE) NBC site, an online poll showed 72% of cybervoters favoring the graduates of the school of hard knocks, and just 28% siding with the ivory- tower bookworm crowd.
Trump has been known to mark folks down a few notches for lacking in formal education -- who can forget the surprising elimination of fan favorite Troy in the show's inaugural season? -- so it will be interesting to see how he reacts to the viewing audience's apparent desire to see a hard-knocks contestant claw his or her way to the top this time out.
But what happened to the best of both worlds? While I value my MBA, I think it would have been useless without a little field experience. That's why I think this new season of the popular TV show may be sending the wrong message when it tries to imply that one approach blows away the other. Campuses everywhere probably let out a collective shrug last night when Trump pointed out how the street-smarts team had a net worth three times greater than the college-degree squad.
Last night's premiere involved a promotional campaign at Burger King. Future episodes will feature product placements -- er, I mean apprentice-testing challenges -- for companies like Home Depot (NYSE:HD) and Domino's Pizza (NYSE:DPZ).
Domino's? Wasn't Trump pitching the Big New Yorker pie for Yum! Brands' (NYSE:YUM) Pizza Hut chain just a couple of years ago? Ah, the perils of free agency. I don't mind the big company names. These real-world corporate tasks sometimes make the show required viewing, and it's why our Trump's Apprentice discussion board promises to be a cool place to hang out over the next few months.
We won't be there for you every week the way Dayana Yochim, Tim Beyers, and I were last season, when we shared a virtual couch to deliver our perpetual perspectives, but do tune in. As Trump says, it's not personal. It's business.
Will you be watching Trump's new season? What are your first impressions of the 18 job applicants? All this and more -- in the Trump's Apprentice discussion board. Only on Fool.com.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz will be watching more often than not this season. He owns no shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story and is a member of the Rule Breakers analytical team, seeking out the next great growth stock early in its defiance.
