Stu Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) DCI in the 70's. I just rechecked DCI scores from the '70s. Nowhere could I find a corps which finished 16th, or 12th, or 8th, etc... at the Friday Semi-Finals and jumped to anywhere close to 1st at Finals the next evening. So, please continue to find a subjective judging contest in any major venue or arena where that has ever happened. Suggesting giving a hand, not the finger. Suggesting OC corps have a program built entirely around their needs, rather than always fighting for attention and support within DCI. Correction to your claim: You are suggesting DCI giving them 'the back of' your hand (as well as giving them the finger after the whack of slapping them out of DCI)! You do not want DCI to give non-elite corps, those who are currently within DCI and any new non-elite up-starts, any services at all; and your solution for them is for DCI is to put them out on the curb to fend for themselves. No matter how you want to spin yourself into delusional thinking by believing you really want to help those corps, you do not. Edited March 7, 2013 by Stu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) I just rechecked DCI scores from the '70s. Cavaliers went from 11th to 8th in '75 (a one-day jump that hasn't been achieved since). Muchachos went from 7th to 4th in '74, Regiment went from 8th to 11th at the same show. In all three cases, their Finals placement reflected their finals performance. Cavaliers and M's both turned it up on Finals night, PR had a totally flat performance. There was more movement, more commonly, than there is today, and the numbers were allowed to reflect the performance more, and the design less. Edited March 7, 2013 by Slingerland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) Cavaliers went from 11th to 8th in '75 (a one-day jump that hasn't been achieved since). Muchachos went from 7th to 4th in '74, Regiment went from 8th to 11th at the same show. In all three cases, their Finals placement reflected their finals performance. Cavaliers and M's both turned it up on Finals night, PR had a totally flat performance. There was more movement, more commonly, than there is today, and the numbers were allowed to reflect the performance more, and the design less. Those were all short jumps within a tic system where mistakes and corrections could result in a very small window of placement variations; and a 3 placement variation did occur over 2 days in 2008 under the new judging system. And I can show you where that same sort of short window placement variation has occurred in other major subjectively judged contests. But that is not the claim by D-Ray. His claim that 18th to 1st is not only possible, but actually realistic where all corps are so equal that 18th to 1st would happen 'on any given day'. All I want is for him to show real-life examples where 18th to 1st has ever happened within drum corps or even in 'any' major subjective contest system. Edited March 7, 2013 by Stu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) But that is not the claim by D-Ray. His claim that 18th to 1st is not only possible, but actually realistic where all corps are so equal that 18th to 1st would happen 'on any given day'. All I want is for him to show real-life examples where 18th to 1st has ever happened within drum corps or even in 'any' major subjective contest system. I don't read his comments that way at all. He's simply calling for a model in which overall competitiveness is increased by greatly increasing the quality of what's out there in the current middle range of the pack. My position is that a drastic change in either the judging system or how the numbers are handled could help in this. He's also calling for an increase in variety, something that it seems even the old timers on here would like to see too. I look at some of the corps in the lower half of the activity and wonder why they're all seeming to play it so safe, offering "lite" versions of shows that are being programmed at the top, and uniforms that are just cookie-cutter from the Uniforms R' Us collection. If you think it's ok for DCI to muddle along with a very predictable line up of "best, better, and good" corps, who are more or less unchanged from year to year, then you're welcome to that opinion, but in terms of building fan interest and strengthening the overall activity, I don't see it as a good thing. Edited March 7, 2013 by Slingerland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 I don't read his comments that way at all. He's simply calling for a model in which overall competitiveness is increased by greatly increasing the quality of what's out there in the current middle range of the pack. Ummmm.... sorry, but he certainly did make that claim. Read the following and you will see that the D-Ray does clam that 18th to 1st 'on any give night' is both realistic and possible: It would be a much more exciting activity if there were 18 corps all about the same level, where any one group could win on any given night. They would be so close to the other 17 groups in terms of performance level that truly is a matter of personal opinion, rather than obvious strata. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) Ummmm.... sorry, but he certainly did make that claim. Read the following and you will see that the D-Ray does clam that 18th to 1st 'on any give night' is both realistic and possible: "Would be" is a phrase that inherently states an ideal, a goal. If you don't think it's a good goal, to have 18 corps who, over a sampling of seasons, could have wide swings in placement and competitiveness, then you're more or less saying that even 18 is an unrealistic number of units for true "world class" competition. Maybe the cut off should be...what? 8? 10? But a league in which the communication leads not with "these are all great competitors" but "only a couple of these 18 have ever actually won, and most of them aren't expected to be competitive for the top" isn't necessarily a league worth having. Edited March 7, 2013 by Slingerland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRASSO Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) Cavaliers went from 11th to 8th in '75 (a one-day jump that hasn't been achieved since). Actually, thats not true. The Guardsmen did so in 1979. In 1979, the Guardsmen on 8/17 placed 10th at the DCI World Class Division Championships Prelims. The following nite, 8/18 at Finals, they placed 7th. Edited March 7, 2013 by BRASSO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted March 7, 2013 Author Share Posted March 7, 2013 How do other leagues that form come up with who should be part of their group? They get together and decide on some criteria for who would make a good member, based on market location, access to capital, technical proficiency, and a consideration of whether each of the partners feels like a good match for the others or not. If you say so. But why do you bring these tangential factors up? I thought you wanted the top 18. In addition, the new leagues almost always have required that each of the member team owners come up with some sort of financial guarantee, so that each one has skin in the game from the onset. My belief is that the path forward should involve not just an evaluation of which 18 corps really are the most committed to the game, but which ones have Board of Directors who are serious enough about promoting the activity as a a whole that they'd be willing to commit their corps to a $100,000 -150,000 "buy in" for a revamped Drum Corps International, with that money used as seed money to put together a total rebranding of the activity. That, in and of itself, would help distinguish who's serious about the business of drum corps and who isn't. That will get you a 2 corps league (okay, 4 or 5 if you count their feeder units). It's my basic contention that the DCI business model, as it stands, is pretty much irretrievably broken. Oh, here we go again. 40 years down the road, the organization has next to nothing in reserves, Wait. Why is it that the same people who say DCI should return as much revenue to the corps as possible, then turn around and criticize DCI for not having enough reserves? and the overall fan base is significantly down from even 20 or 30 years ago. Per prior posts, I would ask whether that is a DCI problem, or a problem with the corps themselves. I'd suggest that one of the primary reasons for this has been that it's become the Generic Drum Corps Association, where it has to try and be everything to everybody, and they have to avoid mentioning that some of the units are actually pretty-much semi-pro or college-level drum corps, and others are high school groups, because acknowledging that there are genuinely different levels of expertise on display would be "giving a middle finger" to the youngest/smallest/most local organizations out there. Actually, they mention that sort of stuff right on DCI.org, so I am not sure what your complaint is. They do not use terms like "semi-pro", however, because neither the corps nor their members profit from this endeavor. The DCI mission explicitly states that they should "showcase the top corps", and so they do. You may have a different suggestion on how to "showcase the top corps". But saying that the DCI model, top-corps-showcasing and all, is "broken" will not help your case. As to 18, because it's a number that lends itself to communications of what DCI Premier League is, is a realistic assessment of how many top corps there are, and is a number that will allow for upwards pressure from corps in the second division, whatever that's called, to bust into the 18 and force some of the lower performing corps out, were the Second Division corps ever to get so good that their season average scores topped those of the guys at the top. Oh, now we are back to the top 18. So in that case, the mechanism you would use to determine top 18 would be season average scores? You've said you're not convinced that there needs to be multiple divisions in the first place, and I can respect that, though I strongly disagree with it. That being the case, I'm not sure anything I or anyone else could say would convince you that the DCM model, for DCI, is a bad fit, but that MLB, Euro soccer leagues, or even high school level varsity/junior varsity divisions will make sense. I do look at things differently from most. But to clarify, if there is a tangible reason for having a separate competitive division, then it will make sense to me. Divisions with different contest rules regarding corps size, age of members, allowable equipment or length of show have all been employed at some time in the activity, and those are purposes I understand. Of course, those kind of divisions are all in the past now. Not sure what you mean by the DCM model being a bad fit for DCI. DCM just made their top 20 corps members based on prelim scores, much like DCI did with their top however-many for their first 30 years. The main difference was the DCM pay scale, which reflected corps size as well as competitive result. Had pros and cons. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glory Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 ...It's my basic contention that the DCI business model, as it stands, is pretty much irretrievably broken. 40 years down the road, the organization has next to nothing in reserves, and the overall fan base is significantly down from even 20 or 30 years ago. I'd suggest that one of the primary reasons for this has been that it's become the Generic Drum Corps Association, where it has to try and be everything to everybody, and they have to avoid mentioning that some of the units are actually pretty-much semi-pro or college-level drum corps, and others are high school groups, because acknowledging that there are genuinely different levels of expertise on display would be "giving a middle finger" to the youngest/smallest/most local organizations out there... Adding Slingerland to the list of folks I hope to sit next to at finals. Change isn't an option. It's not some insidious plot to deprive DCP fans of their birthright. It's a necessity for DCI and drum corps fans. The status quo means doom. And casting all those with alternative visions as villians is short-sighted, even dumb. As regrettable as some might find the G7 approach, equally regrettable has to be this reflex to sustain the current situation. HH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 I don't read his comments that way at all. He's simply calling for a model in which overall competitiveness is increased by greatly increasing the quality of what's out there in the current middle range of the pack. My position is that a drastic change in either the judging system or how the numbers are handled could help in this. He's also calling for an increase in variety, something that it seems even the old timers on here would like to see too. I look at some of the corps in the lower half of the activity and wonder why they're all seeming to play it so safe, offering "lite" versions of shows that are being programmed at the top, and uniforms that are just cookie-cutter from the Uniforms R' Us collection. If you think it's ok for DCI to muddle along with a very predictable line up of "best, better, and good" corps, who are more or less unchanged from year to year, then you're welcome to that opinion, but in terms of building fan interest and strengthening the overall activity, I don't see it as a good thing. I realize you were referencing Dan's comments but the bolded above, which apparently reflect your views, is nearly verbatim of what Dan said in prior posts. And I mean down to the phrases. So I wonder if you two are being fed the same talking points; you both seemed ultra-concerned about not being branded elitists, and use words and phrases that are eerily similar. Granted, it's possible for two people, literally on opposite sides of the world, to view the activity the same way (Dan and I have done it many times here), but you two sound like you're reading off the same cue cards. Add in that your shared comments are remarkably similar to comments coming from the Seven inside the DCI Board room and... well... I'll just leave it there for now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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