this is something that has been debated heavily the last 10 years or so.
Drum corps is highly comparable to NCAA sports. We have the Div. 1 schools who have the huge stadiums, enormous schools and attendance, fan bases, etc. They also have the smaller div.2 and 3 schools who obviously don't make tv, don't have the huge stadiums, and don't have the ja-gungus fan base of the bigger schools. However, this isn't to say that there aren't a large number of supporting family, friends, and fans out there for these schools. This is just like the World and Open class of DCI today, and more so like the old Division 1-2-3 system.
My point here being that there is a large amount of support for the Open class corps...however, just like in NCAA, we don't make TV, we don't have the same number of fans, but we do the activity for all the same reasons the "big guys" do it.
We all play the same game, we just do it with less people.