The UNPRECEDENTED Competitiveness of the 2023 DCI Season
The weeks after a recent drum corps season ends, one of the thoughts that runs through my head about the summer is wondering how that particular season will be remembered years later. After some seasons, it’s pretty obvious. For example, the 2018 season will be forever remembered for Santa Clara Vanguard winning their seventh DCI World Championship and first in nearly 20 years with a show that pushed the innovative boundaries of the activity. 2016 will be remembered almost exactly the same way, but with Bluecoats winning their first ever championship with a similarly groundbreaking production.
When thinking about 2023, it’s been a little less obvious to me what this year will be remembered for. Sure, the Blue Devils winning their third consecutive title (and second consecutive in an undefeated fashion) is a HUGE accomplishment, especially since no other corps in DCI have achieved the feat in over 20 years. Additionally, Mandarins breaking into the top 6 only five years after their first ever appearance in finals is a massive honor as well. But beyond that, I struggle to think of what shows or moments from the season will be highly regarded as legendary a decade or more from now. Don’t get me wrong, there were some fantastic productions and performances this summer. But to me, I can’t think of any moment from the summer that will come close to a Bluecoats pitch bend ala 2014, a Phantom Regiment drum major stabbing ala 2008, or Madison Scouts breaking the sound barrier ala 1995 and 1996.
But then it hit me - this season will be remembered for being so incredibly fun to follow competitively. Of course, an argument can be made - how can you call a season competitive when the champion went undefeated and won every show by a minimum of four tenths? That’s easy - there were so many groupings of three or more corps that went back and forth all season that were so fun to follow. Even more fascinating was how rankings evolved throughout the season with some corps moving between different groupings as the season progressed; something that doesn’t happen every season. Simply put, parity in drum corps isn’t just about who wins every year, but rather how corps move through wide ranges of placements year to year or even within a season. Which is exactly what we experienced this summer.
Being the data nerd that I am, I thought about this further - what if there was a way to quantify the competitiveness of a season? I thought of a couple of different methods but decided to go with one that seemed easiest and straightforward - simply comparing each corps’ placements at the Southwestern Championship with their final placements at World Championships. For over the past decade, the stop in San Antonio has been the most consistently occurring event on the DCI tour outside of World Championships. It’s always three weeks before finals night with nearly every World Class corps in attendance (Jersey Surf was the lone exclusion in both 2022 and 2023) under the same roof and judging panel. In more recent years, with the Southeastern Championship in Atlanta no longer hosting every corps as it once did, the Southwestern Championship has become the only regular season show with (almost) every World Class corps in attendance. Lastly, the stop in San Antonio typically falls right in the middle of the season, so results from the show are a good barometer check as to where corps have been ranking in the season up to that point and foreshadowing where they might place at the end of the season.
The Methodology
My methodology is simple. For the 2005 to 2023 seasons, I measured the absolute difference in placements between San Antonio and World Championships for every corps that finished in the top 18 at World Championships. For example, a corps would receive a value of one in placement difference if they finished the season either one spot above or below where they did at San Antonio. After finding the differences for each corps, I summed up the differences for each season, and also found counts of the number of corps that finished at least 1 and 2 placements apart.
A couple notes:
For the 2005 - 2008 seasons, San Antonio was split into two “afternoon” and “evening” shows. The top 8 corps up to that point in the season automatically advanced to the evening show. The remaining corps competed in the afternoon show with the top 4 also advancing to the evening show. For those seasons, we can say that the corps that finished the afternoon show in 5th ended the day ranked 13th; the corps that finished 6th was ranked 14th, etc.
In 2010, due to the Alamodome not being available for DCI, the show was split into a two day event similar to Allentown. For that season, I derived the full rankings for San Antonio by combining scores from the two separate days/events.
Why did I choose to evaluate only the top 18 corps? Starting in 2011 when Open Class corps became eligible to compete in World Championships, some (but not many) have finished the season placed in the top 18. Going further down the rankings, there have been some years where multiple Open Class corps placed ahead of some lower ranked World Class corps. In these cases, if lower ranked World Class corps had their results compared to San Antonio, it could greatly skew the results.
Enough explaining and time for the big reveal. Using this method, I found that the 2023 DCI season was one of the most competitive seasons on record, and the most competitive since 2007. The full table of year by year results is below.
To me, the most surprising number that stood out was that 15 out of the top 18 corps ended the season in a placement different from where they were in San Antonio; only one shy of the record set in 2007. The only three corps who stayed in the same placement were the aforementioned undefeated Blue Devils, The Cavaliers in 8th, and Madison Scouts in 16th. This really shows especially how competitive the back half of the season was. In past years, a complaint I’ve seen online from drum corps fans is that “the season’s results are basically decided by San Antonio.” This season, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Now, you could say that the aforementioned argument is somewhat correct. Of the 296 corps evaluated throughout the 17 seasons, 249 corps (or 84.1%) either stayed in the same spot or moved up/down only 1 spot. Only 39 corps (13%) moved two spots and only 8 (less than 3%) moved three spots. So although placements never shift drastically from San Antonio to World Championships, it is however true that a corps is 58% likely to move at least one spot between the two events.
My final takeaway from this season’s data is seeing the shocking number of 7 corps that moved two or more spots in three weeks. That’s nearly half of the corps in the top 18, and those 7 corps also account for nearly 15% of the total number of corps that moved two or more spots in the past 17 seasons. I would be remiss not to mention that only 2 of these 7 corps moved up in placement from San Antonio to World Championships - The Cadets who jumped from 7th to 5th and Spirit of Atlanta who jumped from 17th to 15th. The remaining five corps all fell back in placement and actually had a trickle down effect of sorts in causing such a high sum of placement differences for this season. Still, the unprecedented number of corps to move that many spots is further testament to how competitive the season was.
If you are interested, more data is below, including a corps by corps list of placement differences for the 2023 season. Like I said earlier, the 2023 season was incredibly fun to follow and it’s neat to see that data supports that statement. It’s a shame that we didn’t get a close, back-and-forth fight for the title like many were hoping for, but the Blue Devils’ undefeated season was well deserved and we were still thoroughly entertained by a number of battles across the board. As we anxiously await the 2024 season for the next 10 months, let’s hope we get more of the same intrigue next season!
Season by season results of sum placement differences from San Antonio to World Championships, the number of corps that moved at least one spot between San Antonio & World Championships, and the number of corps that moved at least two spots between San Antonio & World Championships
2023 Placement Differences by Corps
Breakdown of number of corps that moved X number of placements between San Antonio and World Championships