MANY groups mic their strongest individual players (30-40 brass players). Some groups mic the sidelines. Some groups do both. The problem is when the top groups mic individual players and win, then you are forcing everyone else to do it, whether they want to or not. Example, everyone loves how good the Phantom contras are. One reason they sound good is because they are all mic’ed. It’s not possible for 12 contras that aren’t mic’ed to sound like they do.
Miking the sideline is not very expensive. You can do it effectively for less then the cost of one wireless mic. Miking 30-40 individual is VERY expensive. 100k expensive or you rent them for 10-20k for the summer. When people complain about drum corps costing too much, miking individual players is a cost that isn’t needed and one that is driving up the price of drum corps. It also creates a have and have nots situation that some drum corps just can’t afford to spend money on.