When was the last time this was discussed?

[31rabbit]

relevant to that other topic, comparing DCI to college football has some merit. every corps plays by the same rules, but a certain set have an advantage in garnering resources to succeed within those rules. More funds, more prestige, they can attract a higher caliber of staff and member talent. so it goes. short of a hardcap on budgets and a draft to place auditionees, I can't foresee a dramatic change to there being Haves and Havenots. A corps can improve its lot via consistent dedication and good planning, but it's a long road. see points as previously discussed in all those other posts.

despite that, I don't want any kind of rules that puts a limiting ceiling on any particular corps. that would only harm the product.

and that said: how important is winning? I didn't see the numbers, but the crowd around the 'coats souvenir booth this year far and away dwarfed that around the Devils'. How many people are going to put their 2014 disc in and skip to track 2? by a Wide Margin, the years in which my favorite show didn't win far outnumber the years in which my favorite show did. yet here I still am and so are most of you.

[84BDsop]

I'm not so sure using pro sports -- where competitors are paid to perform - as a comparative is entirely appropriate. In drum corps, members try out for groups THEY want to march with (whether they make the audition or can afford tour fees is another matter)...and success breeds success.,..just witness how many people try for BD each year....and how many who MAKE the corps come from other corps..even ones who had won the previous year.

That doesn't hapen in pro sports...not by the player's choice, for the most part.

[Dan Detweiler]

...and a lot of good that draft has done the Bills in the last 20 years!

Dan

[31rabbit]

I'm not so sure using pro sports -- where competitors are paid to perform - as a comparative is entirely appropriate.

was that replied at me? i was using college sports for comparison, where the player gets to pick his destination, not professional.

[HockeyDad]

We're all music geeks, so - some you must be familiar with the barbershop chorus "circuit". I don't know what they call it. Anyway have you see Ambassadors Of Harmony? Unbelievably good. Anyway, in that circuit, the champion becomes ineligible to be champion again for the next year or two. (I think anyway. Unless I'm misremembering like Brian Williams). This opens up the field for a new champion. Interesting idea. I know I know. It would NEVER WORK in DCI haha

[BRASSO]

...and a lot of good that draft has done the Bills in the last 20 years!

Dan

. But you miss the central point , The fact that the Buffalo Bills did not utilize the advantaged draft position they were handed by the league.... by drafting well , and developing the players they got is beside the point, imo. The central point here is that almost all sports leagues these days have transfer policies in place and also policies that " penalize " the successful via lower draft pick positions. , and "advantage ' the lower placing teams by moving their draft position up over the top teams . I get that we don ' t want any changes in the current DCI system, and that's fine with me. But let's not kid ourselves that we are going to have something different at the top over the next 35 years if we continue the same policies that we've had in place for the last 35 years . There is no value in being in denial on this it seems to me .

[Shamu89]

was that replied at me? i was using college sports for comparison, where the player gets to pick his destination, not professional.

Using the college comparison for the last 35 years (since 1980) makes more sense:

21 schools represent 39 national champs over that time (some multi-champ years)

128 schools in the FBS or division I

That means roughly 16% of the schools in the FBS have won all of the championships

If you take it back to 1936-present, 30 schools in the FBS have won championships, or 23.4% (assuming 128 schools, which is too many for the early years)

Using the original post, if 4 corps represented all the championships (which they don't) and we use 25 corps as the total participating (we have less now), that's exactly 16% of participants.

Using 30 corps, it drops to 13%

If you use all 9 corps that have won a championship since 1972 and use 40 corps as a number for total membership, that comes to 22.5%. I'm not a DC historian, so I have no idea whether using 40 for membership is valid or not

Data gathered from Wikipedia, so make of all of this what you will.

And all numbers could be slightly off. Did it fast and didn't double-check, so YMMV. ;)

[glory]

All due respect, but I think you’re looking at the wrong stats.

A third of today’s World Class corps have won a championship (seven of 22). That’s not such a bad number. Five different corps have won a championship in the past 10 years (including three of the most recent four). Nothing to be ashamed of there.

Those are the facts. Now I’m going to speculate.

My guess is much of the angst in this discussion isn’t about winning; it’s about losing. I suspect the real issue is there is a segment among the 22 corps in World Class that not only can’t compete for the championship, they don’t realistically compete for finals. Some might even say there is another segment for whom breaking the top 10 or the top 5 seems unrealistic.

The irony is this sensibility has a lot in common with the G7 thinking. There is an assumption within some of the hand-wringing here that distinct, entitled classes define drum corps competition, that the have and have-not have diverged structurally.

Crown, Bluecoats and Crusaders have broken through the limit that never existed to co-exist with the top 5 regulars in the 21^st Century (as did the now-defunct Glassmen). Why take them for granted? Unless it’s because at the other end there are a handful of corps who can’t seem to see top 12 from where they practice.

HH

Edited February 6, 2015 by glory

[nemesiscorps]

All due respect, but I think you’re looking at the wrong stats.

A third of today’s World Class corps have won a championship (seven of 22). That’s not such a bad number. Five different corps have won a championship in the past 10 years (including three of the most recent four). Nothing to be ashamed of there.

Those are the facts. Now I’m going to speculate.

My guess is much of the angst in this discussion isn’t about winning; it’s about losing.

So... with all due respect, I think you're looking at a DIFFERENT set of stats. My discussion surrounds 42 years of competition, 9 champions, and a ton of corps that have competed within that timeframe. Those sets of stats create what I would consider a topic worthy of discussion.

You're focusing on the here and now (e.g. more recent history), which is fine, but it's a different discussion. Obviously, reducing the time period and the number of units will generate different data outcomes. I think your discussion creates an opportunity to postulate on if significant change is underway that may lead toward different outcomes than a wider scope of decades old data may portray. Fair discussion, but not the one that I'm presenting.

Secondly (and I realize it's difficult to do), is it possible to have this discussion focus solely on competitive governing circuits, and the idea of what parity (or lack of parity) brings or does not bring?

I personally think this is about far more than winning or losing, and frankly, who cares? Instead, I think it's about how do parity practices benefit or hamper activities such as ours, and where do we go from here?

[nemesiscorps]

This whole thing sounds like the Socialist Drum Corps Association or something. I don't know what you are suggesting from this post. Should we take from those that have excelled merely for the benefit of those that have not just because we think it is unfair? Should we penalize the organizations that have made wise choices consistently over many years because of some perceived unfair advantage over those that haven't?

To put it another way, should we spot weak sports teams a certain number of runs/points when they are playing better teams just to "even the playing field"? Come on people, this is, like it or not, a competitive arena. We can like or dislike the results of any given contest but what the statistics stated in the original post tell me is that, year in and year out, there is a percentage of organizations that find a way to be at the very forefront of design and performance. There is also a percentage that, year in and year out, don't. That my friends is life. Don't mean to sound uncaring or unfeeling (I guess I sound like a conservative!). It is what it is.

We all have our favorites and we are disappointed when they don't succeed. Believe me, I can relate. I have been a Buffalo Bills fan for 40 years! That being said we can't boost our favorite by somehow willing it to be different. Until the Bills find a way to compete, they are doomed to where they are. Just sayin'

Dan

As previously posted...

It would be nice if this discussion would focus solely on DCI as a 42-year old competitive circuit (meaning an entity that operates, in part, with an objective of facilitating a series of ticketed competitions employing a credible mechanism to crown a single champion from among a variety of performing groups, worthy of "world class" designation), and not on Adjudication Issues; Individual Corps; Executive, Design, or Instructional Personnel; Artistic or Competitive Design Aspects; or Cultural, Social, or Economic Issues that impact virtually every facet of society.