Slingerland

I'd argue that a pro-active response to that question, establishing a clear set of tiers (Premier and Whatever), with a clear set of financial expectations on both ends of the equation would go a long way to stabilizing the activity. But the current open-ended approach to membership isn't doing much to build a foundation that can be used to build the overall brand of DCI in the minds of potential sponsors or audience members.

That's more or less correct. Tour fees at some of the lowest-ranked 10 WC corps are about the same as they are at many of the top 10 corps. That's not a case of the lower-ranked corps overcharging - like the bigger corps, the tour fee doesn't come close to covering all of their expenses - but it's the truth that the cost to march a likely 15th-22nd place corps is about the same as it is to march a likely top 10.

And my point was about actual function of the two organizations and their similarity, not about the specific subs of the 501 section of the tax code that they fell under. Both exist to coordinate events and funnel money to their member groups. Since DCI doesn't, itself, educate anyone (where's the "System DCI" series of camps and clinics?), it's a bit of a stretch for anyone to think that education is a primary element of their business model. The NFL has an outreach and education aspect of what they do too - it doesn't make them the United Negro College Fund or the Red Cross. Both organizations exist to service their members by turning their contests/games into as much cash as they can, which then goes to the members of the league - not to generate a lot of money that then stays in their own coffers.

Unless they get a funding mechanism for it, and create a real structure for the performances or judging, it'll likely be a footnote to WGI's Wind Division within ten years. One of the two organizations has shown an ability to foster new participants, and it hasn't been DCI.

Nonsensical. SDCA is, essentially, standstills. It makes me suspect you've never actually seen one. I also suspect that you don't get the Corky reference, which is probably just as well.

Settle down, Corky. There are times when physical flourishes make sense, and times when they don't. Watching a bunch of the percussion lines this weekend, it was obvious that many of them were adding little dance kicks and plie's in just because they thought they were supposed to, rather than because they created effect.

It's the future for what community drum corps could be and should be doing (rather than putting 15 horns on a football field). However, getting rid of the WGI approach to physical movement would help the concept latch on. Not every movement of the body or set change has to be accompanied by graceful swan-like movements of the arms and legs, apropos of nothing. It looks silly. Same thing goes for the percussion sections. I think the WGI folks are unaware of how goofy and pretentious that looks to the rest of the world.

DCI is absolutely a business. In fact, I'd argue that it's PRIMARY purpose in life is to generate publicity and generate revenues to give to the competing organizations (originally just the 12 finalists, but now with a wider array of beneficiaries). The fact that it's non-profit doesn't mean it's a charity. The NFL is non-profit too, and for the exact same reasons that DCI is; because it's structured to be the financial clearinghouse for the shared activities of its member organizations, doing what they can to create the biggest pool of dollars they can, then disbursing those monies to the member teams. However I'd say the OP is on to the fundamental difference of opinion that now threatens the organization. You have some member orgs who seem to be content with the current situation, where things are never too hot, and never too cold, and others who see the potential for their league to become something bigger. FWIW, the ones who are in the 'growth' camp are being run by Boards and CEOs who have demonstrated an ability to expand their organizations' core businesses, while the most intransigent of the status quo folks seem resistant to changing anything about their organizations, so at least everyone's consistent.

That's exactly the wrong way to look at it. Look at it through the eyes of the sponsors - they are looking at who is the audience for the product, not who participates. And when I look around most drum corps/football/baseball, blah blah blah audiences, I see plenty of Big Macs in the house (especially if you have the misfortune to attend a show at Boylan in Rockford, where the 300 pounders are large and in charge of the cramped bleacher seats). So look at DCI's official pitch in terms of what they offer potential partners: Wow. More than 400,000 people. Without any other information in terms of WHO those people are, this is not worth saying. Is it 400,000 people with average household incomes of more than $100k? Great. Say so. If not, than the number represents .001% of the population of the United States - not exactly an advertisement of the activity's wide appeal. "High Traffic website" - and how many of them are different than the whoppin' 400k who come to see shows? "Scholastic Music Industry" - so essentially, if you're not selling to high school bands, you're not being recruited as a sponsor? "Extensive" marketing outreach - must be working like gangbusters, since it's delivered a whole 400,000 people to attend 135 events (that's an average of 2900 per event, for those who are doing the math; smaller than an average high school football crowd in most major market towns). I'm not sure what's sadder; the fact that DCI feels ok publishing this lame an outreach, or the feeling that this really might be as good as they can do.

Ten years ago, Crown was a consistently bottom half finalist corps. Now they're consistently a top half finalist corps. Obviously it can be done.

When do the space aliens enter this scenario and abduct the corps' equipment manager? How about a terrorist group's use of one of the bass drums as a dirty bomb?

Do the participants/teams utilize a regimen that includes cardio, strength, and endurance training in order to prepare the participants? Yes. Is the bulk of their energy expended on strenuous movement that the average person couldn't do as well as they? Yes. Is a less-conditioned performer likely to fail, where a better conditioned performer will succeed - in short, does physical conditioning play a role in determining success? Yes. Are they expending amounts of energy that causes the body to become leaner, stronger, and faster? Yes. Do the participants compete against each other with the understanding, on their part, that the more work they do to become faster, stronger, and more physical skilled, the higher likelihood of success their team will have against others? Did drum corps in the 1960s or 70s put those same demands on the performers? No, not really. So for us dino's nah, it really wasn't that much of a sport, but today? Well, I'd like to see the nay-sayers strap on and do a few runs of a WC show, and see what they say then.

Bingo is a suckers' game. BD is making it work - for now. That will not always be the case (do any of us under the age of 50 know anyone who plays Bingo? No? I rest my case.) Oh, I'm sorry, was I just quibbling again in your "realistic" scenario? Sorry. How about this for "realistic" - if you want a run a million dollar charity, and don't have access to people with the pockets deep enough and the passion great enough to grab your vision and make it real, either get a different vision or fold up shop. There are very few drum corps who didn't fold up when the deficit of talent in the adult ranks made itself manifest. The scenario you've laid out is of an organization whose problems go beyond the minutiae of grants or bingo, blah blah blah - they clearly don't have anyone in the room who knows how to run a successful small business, so the best thing they could do is go find someone who does before the next meeting.

If you start your "realistic" scenario with the concept of a grant coming in for a drum and bugle corps, you're starting with a bad premise. Drum corps don't get grants. Very few, in any case. There are generally way too many other organizations that are much more deserving of foundation/corporation support for a drum corps to snag more than a few hundred dollars, if anything. Even more to the point, in this day and age, if a foundation is considering making a major gift, they do due diligence to make sure that their support is NOT the only thing that will keep the organization going. Showing a funder a picture where you need the grant in order to stay in business is the surest way not to get it.

"...but then you cross over the International Date Line..."

If your sales slump, absent any external rationale for the slump (like a major recession), then the primary focus should be fixing the problem, not cutting costs right off the bat. Assign a mid-level staffer to look at cost savings, but the bulk of the CEO's energy should be on re-invigorating sales, since THAT's really the cause of the problem in the first place. In other words, "call more people, sell more stuff." If the REASON why you can't afford things at your house is because your eyes were bigger than your checkbook, than sure; cut away. But no one (who really knows the numbers) believes that DCI or the corps are spending extravagantly now. The problem is lagging revenues; not overextended budgets. DCI made some progress last year, but has a long way to go when it comes to putting more butts in seats and eyeballs on the screen. Even with the increased number of participants via the streaming webcast of Finals, both the real attendance at LOS and the number of people watching via live media are significantly down from where they were in the late 70s. If DCI had 25,000 at Finals and another 2 to 3 million watching live on Saturday night, they'd be in a much better position to pitch themselves to corporate sponsors than they are with 17,000 in the stands and another few thousand watching at home.

"Cutting" expenditures as a first response often leads to boneheaded decision making. Seeking greater productivity and efficiencies, sure - but those are both ongoing, forward-thinking approaches, rather than "well, we're cutting' everyone's pay by 20% and getting rid of the marketing department" - the types of dumb decisions that usually come when they've just decided to "cut expenses." Ask yourself the same question aloud - "If I had a business, should my primary concern be growing my customer base and revenues, or making sure I squeeze an extra 4 uses out of every roll of paper towels we buy." If you focus on the latter, you'll have plenty of time to do so. If you focus on the former, the paper towel question becomes all but completely unimportant. As long as DCI still has 40-70,000 unsold seats at their produced regional/national shows (and they do, at least), then they have their work cut out for them to find ways to encourage people to buy those seats, since live audiences are the core element of how DCI makes their money.

Very much, I hope. When you own a unique, exclusive business position in a field of like-businesses, you maximize your unique position; you don't say "hey, let's water the product down so we're not so exclusive!"

How many drum corps members are getting paid to march drum corps? None? Ok, so your analogy between WC performers and professional race car teams starts falling apart even before the first punctuation mark. When the NASCAR owners (the owners of the circuit) decide to do something, those who hope to profit from participating have no choice but to suck it up and follow orders. But drum corps doesn't work on that model. In fact, the "clients" for drum corps aren't in the stands - they're on the field. If you can't provide a framework that appeals to the kids who'll be spending $2500-3500 per year to do it, than you're screwed. Yes, other kids will show up, but they won't be willing to pay that kind of money, and the product quality will suffer as a result, as they won't have the experience level of those in the top corps now. Some people in the stands probably won't care, but if drum corps is essentially no better than average BOA, it loses pretty much any rationale to exist at all.

"Grow" means many things besides just expanding gross revenues. It can mean adapt, expand client base, modify product mix, etc, etc. The general point stands; in any business, you're growing or you're dying. I don't get the sense that DCI, as an organization, is growing, and with the boardroom gridlock going on, there's not much chance of that changing anytime soon. On the bright side, the Board members of the various corps are due to get together again later this month, and who knows; maybe there will be enough cool heads in the room who'll see that the drama at the DCI level has gone on long enough, and it's time for an overhaul of the organization from the ground up. But, to the original point, cutting staff salaries, reducing the number of instruments used, staying home for all of June and early July, etc, probably won't do much to fix anything significant. More than likely, if you reduce the intensity of the summer programs now, you'll lose the interest of the college-aged performers who make up the bulk of the WC corps, at which point it just becomes high school band, but without the woodwinds.

The math & logistics don't work out. First off, where are you going to find 40 or 50 apartments whose owners are willing to sublet for one month? Would YOU, if you owned property? Me neither. Second, the per diem expense for the members right now is significantly less than any group of four would be able to get if they were doing the 'pioneer' model, where they rent and then provide their own utilities and food. Even if the food and housing issue is taken off their tab, the savings wouldn't be that great, since the corps still have to provide staff to teach the show, instruments, uniforms, insurance, etc, etc. Most corps are only charging the members 30% of what it costs to actually put their show on the road as is; having them fend for themselves during move-in wouldn't make a significant dent (my guess is that it would actually increase the expense per kid).

Do high school football teams and college teams get to vote on NFL rules? Just curious.

Not really, unless you're talking about one where the members are all local, the staff is almost all volunteer (and local), and the corps only play weekend gigs for the first half of the season (riding school busses), only spending one or two weeks on the road heading to nationals. And there IS a model for that type of operation already existing; Open Class. But it's harder to get the older, more skilled performers who make up World Class to invest their time away from university to do OC corps; if they're going to do it, they want to do it full-time, which they do in World Class. Transportation leases, insurance, fuel, and food make up about half of the average corps' budget. The only way to significantly reduce those numbers would be if the corps never went anywhere and didn't have to feed the kids.

I'm sorry, but this is so rife with factual inaccuracies that it boggles the mind. Look at any photo of a ballpark from your average day game in the 1950s, and you see 6,000 to 10,000 people in the stands, vs today, when even midmarket teams like the A's can average 24,000 at home - and that's with having to play 81 home games every summer, vs the NFL's 8 home dates per team. Baseball has revenue sharing too, and has for awhile. In the 2000s, eight different teams won the World Series, indicating that the talent is well spread. However it's also worth noting that some of the teams who have the highest payrolls are also perennial losers on the field - see "Cubs, Chicago". In the end, good front offices win titles, not necessarily just the most expensive talent (in fact, good management matters more than talent, because good management knows how to maximize the resources they've got). As to drum corps, if you look at the Garfield's compendium of 990s numbers from this time last year, you see that there's not nearly that big of a spread between the corps as your post assumes. Yes, BD and SCV can probably afford to spend a little more, but the budgets of some regular top 8 finishers are within a few percentage points of some corps who are always on the cusp of making Finals, indicating that it's an issue having to do with management, show design, and talent in the ranks more than with paying some arranger another $5,000 than they'd be able to make arranging for someone else (besides, many arrangers are writing for multiple corps, so it's not usually a case of exclusivity of talent, as it is in professional sports).

Bosoms? Pretty sure the one you want is "bosun's", Señor Boo (corruption of "boatswain")