Have DCI Standings Actually Stagnated?

[dbg]

Actually, Michael doesn't say that. He identifies a key reason why there is more parity in the NFL than in DCI, and in an implicit comparison, notes that this is not the case in DCI by asserting (probably correctly) that DCI will not institute a similar rule. The two have been compared!

In addition NFL players are adults who GET PAID so there is more willingness/acceptance to maybe play for a lower ranking team. DCI members are kids who GIVE PAYMENT to march at a corps of their choice.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Interesting stats to look at, for sure, and thanks for putting them together. I'm not sure they answer your questions definitively. But then, you've probably already come to the same conclusion.

Consider: It wasn't until the 12th year of the DCI era that the West-Coast grip on the top spot (save for one intrusion by Madison) was broken, by Garfield. Cue up their 1983 opener and listen to the Orange Bowl crowd go absolutely insane at the end with almost warlike chants of "East! East! East!" I was in those stands. It sure felt like a moment when The Established Order was coming to an end. So I don't know that your numbers reveal anything terribly new about DCI. It has always been thus.

One batch of numbers I would love to analyze is the number of rookies in each corps, by year. My hypothesis, which might have some bearing on this situation, is that the percentage of rookies in top corps has trended upwards during DCI's 40-year run. Marching members have always moved from one corps to another, but my hunch is that it has become much more common in the current day. In earlier days, when a greater percentage of corps membership was local to the corps, members tended to stick around for several years. They moved up in the standings by making their own corps better. Today, a greater share of DCI's overall membership sees the path upward through several corps. You start in Open Class, jump to a World Class corps, get your chops, then audition up the ladder until you reach your last year of eligibility, when you rook-out with a top-tier corps. The faces of members within each single corps, especially at the top, change more frequently than they did in the past, i.e., the number of rookies in top-level corps not only is higher than in lower-ranking corps, but also has trended higher over the years.

Of course, as lower corps lose members to higher corps, this would tend to push up their number of rookies, too. So, perhaps the true dynamic to watch here is whether the rate of rookie increase is accelerating faster among top-tier corps compared to lower corps, owing to the concentration effect of auditioners from ~20 corps vectoring in on a much smaller number of top corps.

In any event, the effect is to cement the top corps in position, and it is a pattern that is very difficult to uproot. It tends to establish a caste system that is almost impossible to break without either financial calamity falling upon a corps or the kind of forced-turnover rules in place in professional sports. Perhaps if you want to encourage churn among the medalists each year, you cap the percentage of rookies the corps are allowed to contract. It would create a disincentive to corps-shopping. But it also would run smack up against other important drum-corps values. If the activity is for the members (especially, as has already been noted, they are paying for the privilege to participate), limiting member mobility would be a profoundly difficult policy to impose.

But from a data standpoint, anyway, that is my theory, Chris. And it is mine. <Insert picture of Anne Elk here>

Additional thought: you asked, is this a good thing? The answer is the always-unsatisfying it depends. If I'm right and the average MM tenure in top-tier corps is gradually getting shorter (i.e., higher percentage of rookies), then you could observe that a greater number of youth are getting the opportunity to march in championship-caliber units. The ranks of the alumni associations of BD, Phantom, SCV et al are growing at ever-accelerating rates. That's a good thing. If your measuring stick of goodness is competitive balance and getting medals to a larger number of corps, then stagnation at the top would be a bad thing.

Edited February 13, 2013 by 2muchcoffeeman

[N.E. Brigand]

In addition NFL players are adults who GET PAID so there is more willingness/acceptance to maybe play for a lower ranking team. DCI members are kids who GIVE PAYMENT to march at a corps of their choice.

Yes. This is also noted a couple dozen times in the "spending cap" thread (and probably hundreds of other DCI threads over the years). My point was not that the NFL offers a solution to the DCI problem of stagnation, only that the NFL examples appears to show that a DCI stagnation problem exists.

Or is it OK that 83% of the World Class corps never win the championship?

[N.E. Brigand]

Interesting stats to look at, for sure, and thanks for putting them together. I'm not sure they answer your questions definitively. But then, you've probably already come to the same conclusion.

Consider: It wasn't until the 12th year of the DCI era that the West-Coast grip on the top spot (save for one intrusion by Madison) was broken, by Garfield. Cue up their 1983 opener and listen to the Orange Bowl crowd go absolutely insane at the end with almost warlike chants of "East! East! East!" I was in those stands. It sure felt like a moment when The Established Order was coming to an end. So I don't know that your numbers reveal anything terribly new about DCI. It has always been thus.

In fact, I used 1983 as a dividing point in a reply. However, as you indicate with your comment on corps being "cemented" in tiers or a "caste system", the problem seems to have gotten worse. It's now ten years since DCI had a first-time Finalist.

Perhaps if you want to encourage churn among the medalists each year, you cap the percentage of rookies the corps are allowed to contract. It would create a disincentive to corps-shopping. But it also would run smack up against other important drum-corps values. If the activity is for the members (especially, as has already been noted, they are paying for the privilege to participate), limiting member mobility would be a profoundly difficult policy to impose.

Cue the outcry that not only are you penalizing the members but the top-tier corps.

Additional thought: you asked, "is this a good thing?" The answer is the always-unsatisfying "it depends". If I'm right, and the average MM tenure in top-tier corps is gradually getting shorter (i.e., higher percentage of rookies), then you could observe that a greater number of youth are getting the opportunity to march in championship-caliber units. The ranks of the alumni associations of BD, Phantom, SCV, et al. are growing at ever-accelerating rates. That's a good thing. If your measuring stick of goodness is competitive balance and getting medals to a larger number of corps, then stagnation at the top would be a bad thing.

Fascinating response! Maybe MikeN is right --and the G-7 too?-- and the lower-caste World Class corps should accept their status as training corps competing in a Division I-AAA, and not try to spend (and thus die) to compete for upper-caste status? The world has changed ("I feel it in the water...") and Bluecoats and Crown are lucky to be where they are when it happened?

[drumcorpsfever]

The lowest ranking NFL team gets the first draft pick for the next season. If the lowest ranking corps got first choice among the top instructors from the top corps each year, things would get shaken up. As for a draft for new talent, can you imagine what would happen if someone wanting to march Blue Devils was told they had to go to a corps that was typically at or near the bottom of the rankings in order for corps to achieve parity? It's not going to happen. But since that does happen in the NFL, you'll see teams near the bottom surge to near the top over relatively few years when they make good picks in the draft and out-trade other teams.

Michael, you're not a Cleveland Browns fan, are you?

It's been 48 years since any Cleveland team won in ANY sport. Good draft picks, we've had a few. But then again, too few to mention!

We're still waiting for the surge to the top!

Seriously, I do understand your point. Being from Cleveland, though, this does not naturally hold true for us misery-loving fans!

Edited February 13, 2013 by drumcorpsfever

[2muchcoffeeman]

It's now ten years since DCI had a first-time Finalist.

True enough. But FTF is not really a good measure of churn among the top 12 and especially the top 6, which I think is what the OP is talking about.

It stands to reason that, among a population whose size does not change much (e.g., the number of WC drum corps), that as years go by, the amount of time between FTFs would increase. After all, you can be "first time" only once. After the last of the current population of World Class corps achieves finalist status, there never will be another FTF. The amount of time to the next FTF will be infinity. The only way, over the long term, to shorten the time span between FTFs would be to increase the population of world-class corps.

Yet it would be possible, even with zero FTFs from now to forever, for there to be much more moving in and moving out of the Top 12, and much more variability in the corps that win the championship.

Edited February 13, 2013 by 2muchcoffeeman

[N.E. Brigand]

It's now ten years since DCI had a first-time Finalist.

True enough. But FTF is not really a good measure of churn among the top 12 and especially the top 6, which I think is what the OP is talking about.

Well, I wouldn't have listed the number of first-time Finalists in the original post had I not been thinking partly of them! That said:

It stands to reason that, among a population whose size does not change much (e.g., the number of WC drum corps), that as years go by, the amount of time between FTFs would increase. After all, you can be "first time" only once. After the last of the current population of World Class corps achieves finalist status, there never will be another FTF. The amount of time to the next FTF will be infinity.

Right. And there are now 6 active World Class corps (of 22) that have never reached Finals.

Of the 16 active corps that have reached Finals:

-one has never gone higher than 12th;

-one has reached no higher than 9th;

-two have not passed 6th;

-one stopped at 5th;

-one just got to 4th;

-one has yet to better 3rd;

-three have gone as far as 2nd (but two of those not since the early 1970s); and

-six corps' best is 1st.

The only way, over the long term, to shorten the time span between FTFs would be to increase the population of world-class corps.

And have them succeed, which is only possible in a system where it's not too difficult to compete. Good luck Oregon!

Yet it would be possible, even with zero FTFs from now to forever, for there to be much more moving in and moving out of the Top 12, and much more variability in the corps that win the championship.

Agreed, to be sure.

Edited February 14, 2013 by N.E. Brigand

[Dash Fieldpaint]

Interesting that Blue Stars, Troopers, and Crown are all in the same boat: They each have to win to top their best placement ever.

[Fran Haring]

The lowest ranking NFL team gets the first draft pick for the next season. If the lowest ranking corps got first choice among the top instructors from the top corps each year, things would get shaken up. As for a draft for new talent, can you imagine what would happen if someone wanting to march Blue Devils was told they had to go to a corps that was typically at or near the bottom of the rankings in order for corps to achieve parity? It's not going to happen. But since that does happen in the NFL, you'll see teams near the bottom surge to near the top over relatively few years when they make good picks in the draft and out-trade other teams.

Plus NFL players tend to make a bunch of money, regardless of which team they're on.

That's not happening anytime soon in drum corps, either.

[Geoff]

In fact, I used 1983 as a dividing point in a reply. However, as you indicate with your comment on corps being "cemented" in tiers or a "caste system", the problem seems to have gotten worse. It's now ten years since DCI had a first-time Finalist.

Cue the outcry that not only are you penalizing the members but the top-tier corps.

Fascinating response! Maybe MikeN is right --and the G-7 too?-- and the lower-caste World Class corps should accept their status as training corps competing in a Division I-AAA, and not try to spend (and thus die) to compete for upper-caste status? The world has changed ("I feel it in the water...") and Bluecoats and Crown are lucky to be where they are when it happened?

I have been saying this for years, and no one ever listens. The second the lower corps accept the fact that they are never going to compete with the big boys, and then STOP TRYING TO, this activity will be on the path to recovery.