A spending cap, not a "salary" cap

[Kamarag]

Transfer fee aside, I still maintain a larger barrier to DCI's growth (as well as their recruiting and transferring) is the lack of on-field parity. If more corps perform better - and, more critically, are rewarded equally for their achievement - there is less pressure to go where you "know" you will get to perform in Finals.

I tend to agree, but the answer isn't to gimp the successful corps, it's to compel the not so successful corps to design, recruit, instruct and perform better. And for that matter, some of the successful corps that are coasting based on reputation as well...

[cixelsyd]

And based on that Project Persona link I posted, we're talking about the top 6 corps. The average transfer activity into a WC corps is 15%. That's 15-20 MM's. It doubles in the top corps, so 30-40 MM's. 6 corps x 40 MM's = 240 kids. There are, what, 17 other WC corps now (not even counting Open Class corps) so an average of 14 kids from each WC corps that audition and get accepted into top 6 corps? The actual average number of kids leaving WC corps for top groups, owing to kids also coming from Open Class, is likely lower than 10 per group.

I think you are misreading the stats. Look again:

% of Participants With Experience In Other World Class Corps

-All Corps – 15%

-2009 Top 6 Corps 31%

-Some Top Tier Corps Have Nearly 50% With Prior Experience In Other World Class Corps

% Of Participants With Open Class Experience

-All Corps - 17%

-2009 Top 6 Corps – 30%

-Significant Overlap Between Those With Prior Open Class and World Class Experience

The first half of that is exclusively WC corps, thus the terminology "other world class corps". So the 15% (which over the 3,000 WC marchers, equates to 450) are all kids moving from one WC corps to another. Divided by 22 WC corps, that averages out to over 20 kids per WC corps.

[cixelsyd]

Transfer fee aside, I still maintain a larger barrier to DCI's growth (as well as their recruiting and transferring) is the lack of on-field parity. If more corps perform better - and, more critically, are rewarded equally for their achievement - there is less pressure to go where you "know" you will get to perform in Finals.

Of course. But if we could solve that, this discussion would never take place.

[BRASSO]

I tend to agree, but the answer isn't to gimp the successful corps, it's to compel the not so successful corps to design, recruit, instruct and perform better. And for that matter, some of the successful corps that are coasting based on reputation as well...

Sure, and we should let the NY Yankees take all the Free Agents out there with no compensation, no minor leaguer compensation,etc to the other teams and just tell them "good luck"and just learn to " instruct and perform better ". MLB has had more different MLB Champions the last 12 years than DCI has had the last 40 years. If MLB had unfettered, uncompensated, Free Agent transfers,3-4 teams would win all the MLB Titles for the next 40 years too. But they league wouldn't allow it, as that would be suicidal for the overall vitality and health of the activity. This unfettered transfers that DCI embraces is NOT the norm. It is highly unusual. And in the end, it doesn't work for the growth of the activity and its overall vitality and stability, etc, except for a small handful of Corps that of course, for obvious reasons, don't want any changes regarding this.

Sure... we can make no changes in the transfer system too. We can do what we've done for the last 40 years, and hope we get 40 more years of the " developmental corps " ( if they still enjoy the role and are still around ) continuing to fill half the elite corps ranks of seasoned, veteran, talent every year to enable the handful to remain essentially where they've been for the last 35 years. We could continue to do that. We don't have to change a thing. Just do what we've done the last 35 years........ we just need to continue to tell the others after bleeding them of their best talent every year to simply " recruit, instruct and perform better ", thats all. We do that, the activity will remain healthy and vibrant in competition. To implement some level of transfer rules now would be " stupid ". Nobody outside DCI would ever think of putting transfer rules in place in their activity. It might kill off their activity if they did that. They should follow the DCI business practices model. We've got this thing figured out, and the system has been working well the last 35 years, so lets not change a thing regarding having no transfer policies in place with the annual migration of DCI's seasoned talent from " the developmental corps " to the elites each and every year.

Edited February 12, 2013 by BRASSO

[glory]

Happens in professional football (soccer) all the time.

Another soccer anomaly. Not to worry because it doesn't stop the Man U's and Madrids of the world from stockpiling the top talent.

HH

[mobrien]

Sigh.

Comparing professional teams, who are buying talent, with non-profit music education and performance organization who are sellers, not buyers, is pointless.

If your business is losing a customer to a competitor, you don't blame the customer OR the competitor. You ask yourself what you need to do better in order to hang on to your clients. And when you do that, you also put plans in place to try and take everyone ELSE's clients or grow the overall market, because that drive to offer the best products and own the most marketshare is what drives successful organizations, profit or non-profit.

So since the 'finders fee' thing is both a bad idea in nature, and unworkable in practice, let's move this conversation in a different direction.

What will any of the lowest-ranked corps today have to do in order to turn themselves around and become more competitive. Leave off handicapping devices designed to hobble the top-ranked corps; you have to own your own excellence in this activity. So what could Pioneer, Cascades, Mandarins, and the others in that segment of the field do to make themselves corps who can score a 90 come August?

Edited February 12, 2013 by mobrien

[MikeN]

All pure speculation of the potential negatives that you envision would accrue to an activity already on life support according to a couple of the Elite Corps Directors. Do you see anything positive that might accrue if we instituted some changes in the current unfettered transfer system ? And isn't there something inherently and fundamentally wrong with a system when we call so many of the current Corps " developmental Corps " for the elites ? I'm telling you, most ousiders would scratch their heads at what we consider " good business practices ". The system is broke. And these " developmental Corps " are not the essence of the problem, MikeN.

I see where you're coming from, but I approach it from the other end of the argument. If anything, you're highlighting that there are corps in World Class that should not be there, accepting the same payouts and schedules from DCI. They don't have the same budgets (6 corps spent more than 1M in 2010 on Program Expenses, 5 spent less than $500k), they don't serve the same purpose, as you freely admit above - why are they still lumped together?

Honestly, I *don't* see a positive instituting such a transfer market. I don't think there's value in billing the top corps and restricting marching members, all who have already paid for and received services, thus clearing their ledgers. And in the end, this would affect roughly 15 members of a given corps in total (10 per season per my earlier calculation, with the average length of 1.5 seasons in WC per Project Persona).

I am all for increasing the on-field presence of lower-ranking corps (parity!) and strengthening off-field organizations and balance sheets - I just don't think this is the way to accomplish it.

Mike

[MikeN]

We can do what we've done for the last 40 years, and hope we get 40 more years of the " developmental corps " ( if they still enjoy the role and are still around ) continuing to fill half the elite corps ranks of seasoned, veteran, talent every year to enable the handful to remain essentially where they've been for the last 35 years. We could continue to do that. We don't have to change a thing.

Building on my earlier post - Or we could remove the developmental corps from World Class competition and allow them to experience success competing against each other, indeed defining their role as developmental and stop asking them to be something they're not?

Mike

[MikeN]

Also (sorry for all of the "also's") - looking at the survey results -

The average age across *all* World Class corps was 19.4. 44% are in their first year. That tends to suggest these are not long-term members you're getting in WC corps. One or two seasons each.

31% of the top 6 corps had prior WC experience, which also suggests, on average, those MM's spent one year with another corps and then jumped to the top corps. (Of course, that also means that 2/3 of them *didn't*.)

19.4 = college, not high school. (And that statistic that 2/3 of WC marchers are or plan to major in music in college.)

Just something to consider - these aren't HS kids picking up a horn for the first time.

Mike

[cixelsyd]

For the people who did not see my prior posts on these topics:

And there's always the threat that, should it come out that top corps do not want to pay this fee and thus do not accept members who come from these corps, then kids will stop trying out for the developmental corps.

Precisely. That is why an across the board transfer fee would be disastrous - each corps should choose whether to use a fee or not. Only the corps who can recruit enough members on their own merits should ever be considering charging transfer fees. Corps who rely on the cuts from other corps higher up the food chain to fill their ranks should continue to allow free transfers, and by doing so might get more members than before in the process.

Did anyone care to think about how the transfer fee would work if a Top corps vet wanted to go march at a lower corps? They would be forced to pay the transfer fee aswell.

No. Only if the top corps opts to charge such a fee.

And those corps certainly cannot afford it.

Why? Do you assume every "lower corps" has no money?

But they are the ones hurting for talented members. So any scheme the lower placing corps comes up with to improve their corps and gain drum corps vets will end up hurting them severly.

For the number of kids that move from top corps to "lower corps" (if any), how is that hurting those corps severely?

Wow... this thread is quite ridiculous now.

The members are not the problem. DO I wish more would stay with their lower placing corps they started out with? Yes! But that corps has to give them a reason to stay. And even if they did give them a reason to stay.. we shouldn't limit where one wants to march.

How do you limit what someone wants?

Nothing about a transfer fee system would limit where one wants to march. It would not stop anyone from using second choice corps as the pathway to get to their first choice corps, either. But some corps directors do not want their corps to be a pathway to other corps. They feel that pathways just get stepped on. For those few corps, they would have a mechanism to discourage people from using their corps in that manner.

Hell, some marching members just want to experience as much as they can. You get a more rounded education by marching in more corps.

I agree. But frankly, drum corps is not exclusively about education, so the corps directors are not all going to be at peace with kids switching corps every year.