MikeN Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 This is a relevant read: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/antitrust-and-the-fall-of-a-cheerleading For those who don't know, Bain Capital owns Varsity Brands, a company that positions itself as a monopoly in the high school student space. They dominate cheerleading, class rings (they now own Herff Jones, who bought Artcarved (whom I worked for in college, and thus why I know about this) and Balfour) and Yearbook publishing among other companies, and are moving in on marching band. And drum corps - they have partnered with SoundSport and are trying to open up that space to more scholastic groups. Now, I have to add the disclaimer, I've talked with SS reps about this before, and they had very nice things to say about the scholastic music side of Varsity. They apparently are real believers in school music, and I've not heard anything bad about them. For Varsity The Company however, they are a monopoly in every sense of the word, including price fixing, locking out competitors and positioning themselves to dominate a market. This is not new news to cheerleading, but Varsity is embroiled in a fair bit of scandal right now due to sexual, physical and emotional abuse scandals that continue to expose Varsity itself to liability, partially due to its market dominance. Read the details here - there are a lot of common factors with the scandals we've seen in drum corps, including fear, coverup and a lack of transparency when adults move jobs. Please check out the article if you have minutes to spare. The potential parallels to DCI are pretty obvious, I think, and only strengthens the argument that if drum corps doesn't clean up its own house, others are going to make them do it. Mike 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 DCI is one good lawyer away from extinction, because it doesn't have Varsitys money 5 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terri Schehr Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowend Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 As I post every time Varsity comes up, they also own Stabury and DSI (shoes, gloves, podiums, flags, poles, etc) now. Varsity goes down and we lose a HUGE segment of the products that band/corps programs across the country rely on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MGCpimpOtimp Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 5 minutes ago, lowend said: As I post every time Varsity comes up, they also own Stabury and DSI (shoes, gloves, podiums, flags, poles, etc) now. Varsity goes down and we lose a HUGE segment of the products that band/corps programs across the country rely on. Those companies would likely be spun off/sold. They wouldn't go away. We wouldn't lose anything. Except Varsity. So. We won't lose anything 🙂 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 1 hour ago, lowend said: As I post every time Varsity comes up, they also own Stanbury and DSI (shoes, gloves, podiums, flags, poles, etc) now. Varsity goes down and we lose a HUGE segment of the products that band/corps programs across the country rely on. true, but they made the deal to get in bed with Varsity 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FTNK Posted September 13, 2022 Share Posted September 13, 2022 Band, drum corps, cheer etc are just schemes for people like Varsity to suck money out of upper middle class parents at this point 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironlips Posted September 13, 2022 Share Posted September 13, 2022 4 minutes ago, FTNK said: Band, drum corps, cheer etc are just schemes for people like Varsity to suck money out of upper middle class parents at this point That's certainly one way to look at it. I would suggest though that Band, Corps and Cheer are wholesome youth activities, whereas Varsity is a business entity. Conflating the two categories muddies that distinction. One of the issues here is "monopoly". The game of baseball is a very positive activity for young people, but is "Little League" a monopoly? Can a kid play this game outside LL? Can one participate in band, corps or cheer without Varsity being in control at some level? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scheherazadesghost Posted September 13, 2022 Share Posted September 13, 2022 7 hours ago, lowend said: As I post every time Varsity comes up, they also own Stanbury and DSI (shoes, gloves, podiums, flags, poles, etc) now. One of my harassers works there. I wasn't the only one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 13, 2022 Share Posted September 13, 2022 14 hours ago, Jeff Ream said: DCI is one good lawyer away from extinction, because it doesn't have Varsitys money But we’ve always done things this way… and we’re still here. Book of famous last words… 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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