A Great Article on The Cadets

[Sh0uldN0t]

On 2/24/2024 at 12:09 AM, Jeff Ream said:

...we heard lots of rumors of bad business prior to April 2018. After that exploded, more and more came out, and eventually YEA dissolved and the only 2 valuable items....the corps and the band circuit....splt off and were bught respectively. The corps had rumors of issues financially but then again, after Hopghazi and splitting off on it's own, that wasn't a surprise. things seemed stable enough. Then Scott got pushed out after literally keeping the corps alive. 

 

then covid....

Not accurate. YEA/Cadets had good years and bad years. Some years they would have a few bucks left over. Some years they would finish a few bucks short. Mostly it was one year of up followed by a year of down. The clear trend was break even. (Break even isn't a failure in an organization whose mission is to devote proceeds to programs, not to generate profits.)

YEA had a line of credit with the bank because the timing of expenses didn't sync with the timing of revenue. That line of credit gave the operations flexibility to pay bills 12 months a year. The bank kept extending credit because YEA paid it back. Credit wouldn't have been available if the loan weren't repaid. It was repaid in no small measure from the proceeds of a successful U.S. Bands program.

U.S. Bands was the change that killed the Cadets. The Cadets by themselves haven't been able to support themselves in a sustainable way for decades. Going all the way back to the 70s and 80s, Cadets alum have been generous with their opinions and miserly with their checkbooks. The new regime thought they could do this without U.S. Bands. They couldn't.

(Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. I had a bird's eye view of the financials for many years and was privy to high-level discussions as well.) 

Edited February 25 by Sh0uldN0t

[Terri Schehr]

13 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

oh no USBands was a revolving door. how many times was Sean in and out?

Wasn’t McCormick there for the blink of an eye? 

. I thought maybe he could pull things together but I guess there were differences in strategy or something. 

[Terri Schehr]

2 minutes ago, Terri Schehr said:

Wasn’t McCormick there for the blink of an eye? 

. I thought maybe he could pull things together but I guess there were differences in strategy or something. 

https://sbomagazine.com/yea-welcomes-music-education-veteran-scott-mccormick-to-usbands/

[HockeyDad]

“Generous with their opinions and miserly with their checkbooks.”

Classic. So true in many many organizations. 

[Slingerland]

3 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

Wasn’t McCormick there for the blink of an eye? 

. I thought maybe he could pull things together but I guess there were differences in strategy or something. 

Most likely that Scott McC had one, and GH didn't.

[Tim K]

4 hours ago, Sh0uldN0t said:

Not accurate. YEA/Cadets had good years and bad years. Some years they would have a few bucks left over. Some years they would finish a few bucks short. Mostly it was one year of up followed by a year of down. The clear trend was break even. (Break even isn't a failure in an organization whose mission is to devote proceeds to programs, not to generate profits.)

YEA had a line of credit with the bank because the timing of expenses didn't sync with the timing of revenue. That line of credit gave the operations flexibility to pay bills 12 months a year. The bank kept extending credit because YEA paid it back. Credit wouldn't have been available if the loan weren't repaid. It was repaid in no small measure from the proceeds of a successful U.S. Bands program.

U.S. Bands was the change that killed the Cadets. The Cadets by themselves haven't been able to support themselves in a sustainable way for decades. Going all the way back to the 70s and 80s, Cadets alum have been generous with their opinions and miserly with their checkbooks. The new regime thought they could do this without U.S. Bands. They couldn't.

(Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. I had a bird's eye view of the financials for many years and was privy to high-level discussions as well.) 

You sound knowledgeable, but there are a few things I do question. One, I’m not sure I agree Cadets alums have been free with criticism but miserly with funds. Over the years I have sat with Cadets alums at shows in Boston and New Jersey, purchased tickets in Cadets blocks in Allentown and one year in Atlanta. I only started hearing grumbling in 2012 at Met Life Stadium. Cadets alums have been generous and for many years defended the corps right or wrong. Alums just got fed up when it was expected that alums would bail the corps out of trouble, no questions asked.

Also, did a new regime decide it could do without US Bands, or did it have little choice in selling it off? I can’t imagine too many banks would have been willing to extend credit to Cadets after 2018.

[BigW]

22 hours ago, karuna said:

While this is technically true, it's not quite how it happened.   Even after the acquisition, things were very tenuous with USBands.  Judges, bands, show hosts -- there was a lot that could have gone wrong.  

In any case the Cadets were literally run by USBands.   The Cadets income didn't begin to cover their expenses.  Despite this financial reality,  the people running the program received no respect or recognition from the clown supposedly in charge (or for that matter from the entire drum corps side of the house).  

The CiC (well put, sir!!) IMHO viewed every competing band as a bag of money to reach into. Just my tuppence.

[Slingerland]

12 minutes ago, Tim K said:

Also, did a new regime decide it could do without US Bands, or did it have little choice in selling it off? I can’t imagine too many banks would have been willing to extend credit to Cadets after 2018.

I'm gonna go a little Occam's razor on this one and spec that YEA got an offer from BD for the circuit that was under actual market value (because BD isn't stupid) yet enough to bridge them into a situation where they could wind-down their org and manage the transition of the drum corps to a new organization.  The cruel irony here is that the timing literally could not have been worse, as the new org's lack of business history pre-Covid made them ineligible to apply for the SVOG funds that almost every other drum corps grabbed and used to prop themselves up in 21 and 22. 

That said, if they HAD had $700k-2m in SVOG funds in the bank, the complainant's attorney would know that, and it would make CAE more likely to have offered a significant six-figure settlement. Ironically, being flat bust now might be what gives them an outside shot of pulling this together in the long run, assuming they prevail in court and the complainant gets nothing.

[BigW]

3 hours ago, HockeyDad said:

“Generous with their opinions and miserly with their checkbooks.”

Classic. So true in many many organizations. 

Perhaps the incessant "give us $$$$$$$$$$$$" E-mails got people to tune out!? Just asking...

Edited February 25 by BigW
Need to learn to spell

[Sh0uldN0t]

2 hours ago, Tim K said:

You sound knowledgeable, but there are a few things I do question. One, I’m not sure I agree Cadets alums have been free with criticism but miserly with funds. Over the years I have sat with Cadets alums at shows in Boston and New Jersey, purchased tickets in Cadets blocks in Allentown and one year in Atlanta. I only started hearing grumbling in 2012 at Met Life Stadium. Cadets alums have been generous and for many years defended the corps right or wrong. Alums just got fed up when it was expected that alums would bail the corps out of trouble, no questions asked.

Also, did a new regime decide it could do without US Bands, or did it have little choice in selling it off? I can’t imagine too many banks would have been willing to extend credit to Cadets after 2018.

Not every alum of course. But generally, the alumni base hasn't coughed up the cash that the Cadets needed to operate on their own. This isn't new. Even after winning three DCIs in a row in the 80s, the Cadets barely scraped by because the donations just weren't there. Most drum corps fans don't realize just how close the corps came to folding multiple times decades ago. 

People forget that BD had bingo to fund the drum corps. SCV too. For a while, anyway. Cavies never got rich off Rosemont, but its sponsorship was worth something. Cadets had no other source of funding except donations and later U.S. Bands. BD wanted U.S. Bands because they know a money-maker when they see it. 

I wasn't privy to the actual discussions on selling off U.S. Bands. I do know this, however. The brain trust backing the new regime wanted a "pure" Cadets approach. It was their intent from the beginning to focus only on the Cadets. And they believed they could do that because they expected Cadets alumni to donate in support of their more traditional thinking. They were wrong about that and lots more.