The 2022 DCI Season: Predictions vs. Reality
How did preseason predictions posted on Reddit about the 2022 DCI season stack up against actual results when the season was all said and done?
The 2022 DCI season had everyone chomping at the bit as competitive drum corps returned to football stadiums around the country this summer. While a shortened, non-competitive 2021 season allowed DCI and some corps to return to a little bit of normalcy following the canceled 2020 season, members, staffs, and fans alike were excited for a new summer and a chance to crown a champion for the first time in three years.
And as it almost seems like clockwork, with a new season of competitive drum corps came plenty of predictions, rankings, and hot takes on social media in the months leading up. One such hotbed for rankings is the “r/drumcorps”, otherwise known as the most popular drum corps related forum on Reddit with close to 40,000 subscribers. The drum corps subreddit’s popularity has picked up in the past decade, coinciding with Reddit’s overall growth, to where the 2022 season brought dozens of new posts every day.
With how competitive the 2022 season ended up being, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the predictions posted by users on the drum corps subreddit before the season started and compare them to the actual season results. As expected, there was a lot of variance in a number of predictions and there was no prediction even remotely close to the final placements. That being said, there were some interesting trends in the community’s average prediction, some of which were actually fairly close to being accurate!
First a quick note on my methodology. Here was my criteria:
I first searched the drum corps subreddit for threads containing the word “prediction.”
The threads I evaluated are linked in the list below along with the date they were posted. Note that a couple of threads were posted a few weeks after the season started, so the predictions in these threads are a bit more closer to how the actual results transpired.
Comments qualified as a prediction if they listed 5 or more corps with exact placements.
Comments did NOT qualify as a prediction if they simply stated opinions such as where one or two corps may place or where different competitive groupings of corps may place.
In total, I compiled 19 different predictions. You’ll notice in the results that a number of corps received less than 19 votes - this is because many users commented only with their predictions for the top 12 placing corps.
List of threads evaluated:
2022 Predictions - August 19, 2021
2022 Season Placement Predictions - December 2, 2021
Predictions for finals in 22?? - February 8, 2022
2022 Bold Predictions Thread - June 5, 2022
Last Minute Pre-Season Predictions - June 24, 2022
DCI 2022 Predictions - July 11, 2022
DCI Finals Updated Predictions - July 24, 2022
Below are the results!
A quick explanation on each column:
Votes - the number of votes a corps received
Actual - the corps’ final placement for the 2022 season
Avg - the average predicted placement for each corps
High - the highest predicted placement each corps received
Low - the lowest predicted placement each corps received
Mode - the most common predicted placement for each corps
Diff - the difference between the corps’ average placement and predicted placement
Now for a review of the results! It was interesting to see that the highest average placement predicted was only 2.47 for Blue Devils. Bluecoats and Carolina Crown were not too far behind with 2.79 and 2.84 respectively. Even though the majority of people thought the Blue Devils would place second, their lowest predicted placement of only fourth place likely contributed to them receiving the highest average place.
A lot of people underestimated the Boston Crusaders going into this season. While a handful of commenters thought they could medal, very few people thought they could reach as high as second until the season began to unfold. Their difference between average and actual placement of 2.58 was the highest amongst corps in the top 10.
Similarly, there was a lot of underestimation for Colts and Troopers to make finals. Out of the 19 predictions compiled, each of the two corps only received 6 votes; and of those votes, two predicted Colts to make finals, and one for Troopers to make finals. This initial lack of confidence really shows how hard both corps had to work throughout the season to earn the respect and expectation from the community of being finalist corps. Like Boston, they both finished more than 2 spots above their average predicted placement. Kudos to them!
While there was a lot of variance between average and actual placement for some corps, others placed fairly close to their expected placement. Bluecoats, Phantom Regiment, and Mandarins all placed within one spot of their average predicted spot, while seven more corps placed within two spots of their average predicted spot.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of overestimation for the Cavaliers, Blue Knights, and Pacific Crest. Each of the three corps had strong trajectories and were continuing to move up the rankings prior to the canceled season in 2020. Even last year in the shortened, non-competitive season, the three organizations fielded strong corps that led many to believe that 2022 would be a good year for each of them. Unfortunately, different challenges arose for the three corps throughout the 2022 season that caused each to drop spots from their previous placements in 2019.
Overall, the results speak to how difficult it can be to predict accurate placements, how competitive the season was, and how much parity the activity has seen the past decade. It was a season to remember for being incredibly competitive with a ton of fantastic performances from top to bottom.
And before I end this article, I would be remiss if I didn’t feature a few comments with surprisingly accurate opinions or some that were wildly incorrect. This is all in fun, and usernames have been rescinded to protect the innocent :-)
Spot on!
“Idk about placements but I think the fight for 12th will be more interesting than the fight for first”
“Y'all ain't ready for the Colts”
“Boston medals”
“The Sanford will be won by a corps who has never won it before.” (correct! Bluecoats won their first ever High Percussion Award this season)
“Troopers make finals”
“Colts makes finals” (surprisingly, this comment was downvoted!)
“Devils hornline has a new caption head. Chip and staff will make sure the Jim Ott Award returns to the west coast.” (Blue Devils won their first High Brass Award since 2014 this summer)
“Boston is gonna be top 4”
Some truth, some inaccuracy
“2 corps that didn’t make finals in 2019 will make finals. Boston and Cavaliers will medal.
“BD places the lowest they have since 2006. Phantom makes top 8. Cadets makes a break at top 5. Scouts, PC, or Troop make finals. Crown wins their second championship.” (some truth here with Phantom, Cadets, and Troopers)
Ooof, not quite…
“Blue Devils will not win”
“Cavies medal and BD doesn't (note: not a hater. I'm a member of the BD family, just a random feeling)”
“Blue Devils wish they could win this year. Their corps and membership has gone through more change this season than ever before. Plus not having had a show in 21’ there’s no chance they win or even get second.” (seemed like a lot of wishful thinking here…)
“4th place: BD (I think the dynasty is over)”
“13th place: Blue Stars (sorry for the 2012 ptsd prediction)” (Blue Stars in fact would finish with their highest placement in over 40 years this season)
“Although I was also blown away by Troopers, Phantom, Cadets, and Madison, it is still unlikely they jump significant places.” (the first three corps in this list each jumped 3+ places from their 2019 finishes, while Madison Scouts jumped two places)
“Also hot take maybe, but BAC isn’t gonna be medalling.”
So there you have it! Some great predictions, some not-so-great predictions. Again, just further proof on how tricky it can be to determine how any particular drum corps season will play out. But perhaps that’s what makes our activity so great.
Marching Arts by the Numbers is a current staff writer and stats guru for General Effect Media. He has been involved in the marching arts activity for nearly two decades in a variety of roles. Marching Arts by the Numbers is his newest project with the vision of being the primary source of statistical information for the marching arts community. You can follow more of his work at @band_scores on Twitter.
A betting market like PredictIt might be a bettor predictor of a DCI season results. People making predictions on social media most likely don't have access to information like how new staff is adapting to corps, struggle filling sections, etc. that someone with inside information would have and be in position to make informed wagers on.