How to Predict the 2025 DCI Season
With a new season just days away, we take a look at how corps move placements from year to year and what these trends can tell us about how 2025 will shake out
It’s June, so you know what that means… a new DCI season is right around the corner.
The 2025 season officially kicks off in 16 days with a non-competitive preview show in Muncie, IN featuring Carolina Crown, Phantom Regiment, and The Cavaliers. The first competitive shows will take place the following day with five World Class corps performing at Drums Along the Rockies in Colorado and a number of All-Age Class corps performing in Connecticut. By the following weekend, the season will be in full swing with events throughout the midwest, west coast, and southeast.
Most corps have already begun spring training and the long process of learning and refining their productions. Show announcements are ramping up as more than half of all corps have unveiled their 2025 productions to date. Excitement is building among fans and alumni who are starting to speculate how the season might unfold. June has become a popular month for social media to buzz with discussion and predictions about the upcoming season and this year is no different. The /r/drumcorps subreddit, which has become a popular forum for discussion about the activity, has already seen eight different posts about predictions in the past two months.
If you’ve followed bandScores content for a while, you may remember last year’s b(AI)ndScores prediction model that I built to predict the outcome of the 2024 season. I’m in the process of making tweaks and improvements to the model and will post 2025 predictions soon. But I also thought it’d be interesting to look at trends in year-to-year placement shifts in recent seasons and provide that information to help others formulate their own predictions. Drum corps is an interesting activity in that, much like sports, it follows competitive tendencies, but it can also be very difficult to predict. That said, let’s look at some trends in recent years and see what it might tell us about how this upcoming season will shakeout.
Methodology - Year-to-Year Placement Differences
A little less than two years ago, I published a blog piece that argued that the 2023 season was one of the most competitive DCI seasons in recent history. To support my claim, I looked at the top 18 placing corps from every season between 2005 and 2023 and measured how many placements they gained or lost between World Championships and the Southwestern Regional in San Antonio that always occurs three weeks before finals. With this method, I found that 2023 had the highest cumulative sum of placement differences amongst the top 18 corps since 2007.
For this piece, I’m going to use a similar method but compare corps’ placement differences between one season and the season prior. With that, I’d like to reintroduce two terms that I’ll be referencing in the remainder of this article:
Placement difference: how many placements a corps gained or lost from the season prior. For example, in 2024, the Bluecoats finished first after finishing second in 2023, so their placement difference last year was +1. Meanwhile, the 2024 Blue Devils finished third after winning in 2023, so their placement difference was -2.
Absolute placement difference: the absolute value of placement difference. Think back to middle school math class and remember that absolute values are essentially the non-negative value of a number. So these absolute placement differences simply represent how many total placements a corps moved up or down from the prior season.
For this piece, I’ll be looking at placement differences since the 2011 season. This year is important because it was the first season in which Open Class corps joined World Class at the “main” World Championships competition and were eligible to make semifinals and finals (for about a decade prior, the two classes had their own separate competitions for prelims, semifinals, and finals). I’ll also be looking at only the top 20 placing corps from each season for two reasons: 1) to be able to equally compare differences from season to season and 2) as we get into corps placing below 20th, there tends to be much higher variance in placement differences (especially amongst Open Class corps) that could unfairly skew numbers.
One final caveat - I also adjusted data for “missed” seasons. For example, due to the pandemic cancelled season in 2020 and non-competitive season in 2021, the differences in 2022 were evaluated against 2019 placements. Likewise, in cases when a corps was inactive or didn’t compete at World Championships the prior year, I evaluated the placement difference from their last competitive appearance. For example, differences for 2024 Santa Clara Vanguard and Blue Devils B were based on their finishes in 2022, and the difference for 2023 Spirit of Atlanta was based on their finish in 2019.
Enough explaining; let’s look at some data!
Corps move more often than not
First, let’s take a look at just the 2024 season. The table below shows the top 20 corps from last season, their final placement in 2023 and the difference and absolute difference between the two seasons:
Perhaps one of the first things that sticks out is how few corps stayed in the same placement from the previous season. Among finalists, only Colts and Troopers repeated their ninth and tenth place finishes from 2023. Amongst all of the top 20, only five corps total finished in the same placement.
Unsurprisingly, it’s quite rare for a corps to finish in the same placement in consecutive seasons. Amongst the 240 corps evaluated in the 12 seasons since 2011, only 40 (16.7%) finished in the same placement as the year prior. Interestingly, this rate was exactly the same when further broken down by finalists and non-finalists: 24 of 144 finalists (16.7%) finished in the same placement as the year prior, while 16 of 96 non-finalists (also 16.7%) did the same.
Despite this relatively low rate, the last four seasons have had five corps each in the top 20 that did not change placement for a higher than average rate of 20%. Before 2019, only the 2011 season was such an instance of five corps staying in the same placement. Regardless, in a group of 20 corps, rates of 16-20% translate to only three or four corps staying in the same placement.
While corps frequently move, it’s usually not by much
So we established that it’s quite common for corps to move placements from season to season, but by how many placements? Below is a table and chart: the table shows the average number of absolute placement differences by season for all top 20 corps, all finalists, and all non-finalists in the top 20. The chart shows the cumulative frequency of placement differences across all seasons.
If you’ve followed drum corps for a while, you already know how hard it is for corps to climb the competitive ladder, especially to get to the top. Corps simply don’t jump from being in the last few spots in finals to a champion in one year - building a championship caliber corps is a difficult process that takes years of assembling a strong design and educational staff combined with talented members in all sections. Case in point, The Cadets in 2011 were the last champion to have won after placing lower than third in the prior season (The Cadets finished fifth in 2010). In fact, since 2000, the only other corps to accomplish the feat were the memorable 2008 Phantom Regiment, who placed fourth in 2007.
That said, it’s not too surprising to see that the average absolute placement difference is under two for all corps in most seasons, and is also almost always lower for finalists than non-finalists (the exceptions being 2024 and 2011). One interesting finding was that 2022 had the highest averages across all corps and finalists, and second highest for non-finalists. That season of course was the first competitive season in three years following the pandemic, and as a result, some corps saw significant changes in their staff and membership talent. The high average can be attributed to a total of five corps that shifted five or more placements from their 2019 finish, including Troopers and Colts who each made significant climbs to advance to finals for the first time in over a decade. Otherwise, in most other seasons, only upwards of two corps move by five or more placements; 2012 was the only other season in which three or more corps shifted by five placements.
One final chart to drive this point home: the line graph below shows the average absolute placement by the corps that finished in each top 20 placement. The chart proves that there does appear to be somewhat of a linear trend in that corps that place lower are more likely to see higher averages in absolute placement differences.
When it comes to finalists, there’s a ton of parity in DCI
Competitive parity is always a hot topic in drum corps. The Blue Devils have long been DCI’s dominant corps, having won a record 21 World Championships, 11 of which have come in the 23 seasons since the turn of the century. Some would argue that alone proves a lack of parity in the activity. However, I would disagree given these two facts:
Seven different corps have won at least one championship in the past 17 seasons: Bluecoats, Blue Devils, Santa Clara Vanguard, Carolina Crown, The Cadets, Phantom Regiment and The Cavaliers. This is only one corps fewer than the eight that won at least one championship in the 34 seasons before 2006.
18 different corps have made finals at least once since the 2010 season. Of the corps that placed in the top 18 in 2024, only Pacific Crest and Music City have never made finals.
Let’s focus on that second point and finalists in general: it’s actually quite rare for the same 12 corps to make finals in consecutive seasons. Take the last three seasons as recent examples: the 2024 Madison Scouts, 2023 Blue Knights, and 2022 Colts and Troopers all made finals after not being in the top 12 in the season before. In fact, since 2000, the only seasons in which the same 12 finalists advanced in consecutive years were 2019, 2015, and 2006. Given these facts, there’s definitely an argument to be made that strong parity exists when it comes to finalists.
TL;DR
Phew - that was a lot of facts and figures. Let’s recap more concisely and put it in context for what we might expect in the 2025 season:
We can expect that most corps will move at least one placement up or down from their final placement in 2024, however it is likely that between 2-4 corps will stay in the same spot.
The winner in 2025 will likely be a corps that finished in the top three last year - those corps were Bluecoats, Boston Crusaders, and Blue Devils.
Most corps will move up or down only one or two spots from their 2024 finish. We might see a corps move up or down five or more placements from their 2024 finish, but they will likely be in the lower half of finals or a non-finalist.
It is likely that a non-finalist in 2024 will finish in this year’s top 12. Pacific Crest, Blue Knights, and Crossmen are likely contenders given their 13th-15th place finishes last year.
So yes, there’s a lot of trends to consider, but there’s also a lot of unknowns. Personally, I always love a competitive season when trends are broken and new records are set. Who knows, maybe we’ll have a wildly unpredictable season with a champion that placed lower than third last year, three new finalists, and a few corps that jump a number of placements? Who would say no to a fun season like that??
One thing’s for certain - the DCI season is just days away and we all can’t wait to see what this season has in store!