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TOC/G7 Related Discussion


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Does anyone here have or know where I can get a copy of the current DCI bylaws?

This would answer many questions for me, including how to respond to the idea of selling the assets to a private enterprise.

In addition DCI's own decision to disband and distribute its assets, there are federal and state laws governing dissolution and distribution of non-profit assets. These are generally found in bylaws.

These regulations are made in the interest of the organization, as opposed to any individual or group of individuals, and the governmental bodies that grant organizations non-profit status.

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Can't really understand why this would be a dealbreaker. If it is, then someone isn't thinking clearly.

How much revenue is really being generated each year from these archives? This small amount is worth walking away from a deal that could actually provide guaranteed stability and growth?

Not sure what the exact number would be. It is not just physical media and Fan Network for DCI, but also all the tour DVDs, compilations and Mediabox-type services that individual corps produce using DCI footage.

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but also all the tour DVDs, compilations and Mediabox-type services that individual corps produce using DCI footage.

Very little of that content is shot and produced by DCI. It's almost always done by the corps themselves (sometimes using the same company DCI uses, like when Box 5 used to have the contract, sometimes not).

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And at that point, the corps themselves would have to agree to give over a lot of the power they now have in terms of product, tour schedule, etc, and trust that they've hired the right team to build the brand.

Oh. Then this whole post was a waste of your time, since that will never happen.

Then you'll see a group of corps--more than 7, no doubt--who'll decide that they don't want to be stuck on a ship that is going down, and they'll create something new to take DCI's place.

I don't get the impression the G-7 corps want to give up any power.

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I know tour DVDs are either mostly or wholly produced by the corps (i.e. a videographer hired by the individual corps). Some of them include their final performance as recorded by DCI, though.

There are many compilations on DVD, CD or online delivery service sold by individual corps, consisting of DCI recordings.

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This was actual marketing or market research? I got the same thing, but understood it quite differently.

The clear conclusion from my side... DCI was feeling internal pressure to kil DVD (move to online) and some live events. The survey was a conclusion in search of validation.

my bad research, not staright marketing. that is what happens when you play on DCP in between the little one waking up due to teething issues.

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There are several models out there, one being the "association" model (which is what the corporations known as the National Football League, the National Hockey League, etc are), where it's a collection of privately-owned or operated businesses who use a central organization to manage competitions, negotiate media deals, and share revenues that are created by the combined efforts of all the partners. Individual profitability via the route of maximized group effort is the rule of the day. They make money as a group with an eye toward distributing that money back to the individual partner organizations

But there's another model of the for-profit 'league', and that would be NASCAR and the WWF (or whatever McMahon's wrestling league is called). In those cases, the league really is the product and the players/teams benefit from their work, but not (arguably) as much as the league owner does.

I'm not sure that the latter model would be feasible with DCI, as it moves to far away from the original intent of the organization, which naturally aligns more with the NFL model.

I don't think you'll find that much disagreement even among the two primary viewpoints in this thread that DCI would do best with a stronger executive/less-interested Board model. There's a process that would have to lead to that, however, and step one would be committing to bringing in a team at the top who had the contacts and experience to grow the league's revenues several steps past where they are now.

The present Board members (some of whom are no doubt reading this thread) will have to acknowledge that none of them have the ability to be that guy (if they did, they'd be CEOs at $30m organizations, and not running $1m drum corps), and commit the organization to professionalizing at the top in a way that hasn't been done yet. And the member corps will have to be willing to accept that if they brought in an outside eye from the world of sports or event marketing, that she or he would likely want to make some changes in product that would take some elements of the product control out of the hands of the corps directors and their staffs.

There's room for growth here, but it's going to require the current leadership of the corps and of DCI themselves to realize that they're going to need to commit resources to getting the type of league management who's not going to be afraid to push the corps to be more marketable than they are now.

funny you mention they'd need to admit they aren't that guy. They did do that...in the manifesto, they said they didn't have the answers, but they wanted the power and money

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You won't hire those guys for what DCI is paying now, no.

But there are plenty of non-profit organizations in the $18-30m range that have sports and arts events in their portfolios of activities. The CEOs at those organizations are typically in the $300k plus benefits and performance bonus range, not in the $1m range. The best can be close to $700k, but then again, those are the ones who are running $30m organizations; I'm pretty sure the member corps would be cool with paying someone that much if the person was able to triple the size of DCI from where it is now.

Those CEOs recruit Board members who use their business and personal connections to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars (each) in outside support for their organizations. That's the model to look at, not the PTA bake sale.

If you think that the positive impact of what drum corps does and the potential appeal of the product is so insignificant that it deserves a bake sale mentality, then go for it. Oh wait, don't bother, you've already got it. Carry on.

But it would be a good idea for the current Board to sit down with the member corps and have an honest discussion as to what the investment would look like to build something more substantial. First order of business would be committing to the idea of substantial growth - set a target for what you want in hard numbers re: audience size and revenues. The actual plan for achieving those resultthe current board is made of s would have to be in the hands of the executive team they hire to do the building.

And at that point, the corps themselves would have to agree to give over a lot of the power they now have in terms of product, tour schedule, etc, and trust that they've hired the right team to build the brand. If they do so, there's hope for moving forward. But if they continue to go with the relatively weak executive/strong Board philosophy, they're screwed.

the current board is made up of 8 of the corps...4 of which want to run it all. self defeating set up no?

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