College football runs the state of South Carolina. The state shuts down from the Belk College Kickoff till, this year, the College Football Playoff National Championship which Clemson made this year. The other sports of basketball and baseball take over the center stage for the winter and early spring and just as you start getting bored with lackluster South Carolina and Clemson basketball what shows up but Spring Practices and the annual spring games. Thousands of people show up to a game where the Gamecocks play against themselves. That figure is nothing compared to the masses of people that show up on a game day. Williams-Brice seat a little over eighty thousand people and pack more in. That is not even counting the amount of people that stay in Gamecock Park and the state fairgrounds and tailgate during the game that they watch on television. It is so important to us that the highest paid state employee was, our former head ball coach, Steve Spurrier. There was a fifteen million dollar renovation done to jest the outside of Williams-Brice stadium over the offseason. The bottom line is that the people in Southeastern Conference country love football.

There are so many things that go on during a typical game day any given college football game and every school has something different and unique that they do that is iconic to their program. At Wake Forest their mascot, The Deacon, rides into BB&T field on a black and old gold Harley Davidson motorcycle. At Texas A&M well before the game Kyle Field hosts the parade of the Corps of Cadets. Clemson and Virginia Tech both have lucky objects that the players touch before they come onto the field. Oregon wear unique uniforms that change every week. Florida State and Southern California both have live mascots ride onto the field on horses. All these traditions are very iconic and awe-inspiring in their own way. But usually the most iconic and well liked traditions come from and are done by that schools marching band. What would a college game day experience be without the help of the marching band? What would a game at Ohio State be if the band did not march the famous script Ohio drill? In fact this tradition is so famous that the National Football League paid for the entirety of the Ohio State marching band to fly to London, United Kingdom and play at the game where the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars. And Purdue and Missouri would not be the same without their giant bass drums, Purdue's World's Largest Bass Drum and Missouri's Big Mo. This was also copied by a NFL team, the Carolina Panthers, with their Keep Pounding bass drum that goes along with their Purrcussion drum line. Also Carolina is not the only other NFL team with a drum line that performs at home games. This trend is not just a coincidence, it is a fact that the average fan that attends a football games enjoys the band playing there. Yet most of the time these bands do not get on television. Many bands have a hard time doing well because they cannot treat their members well. Others are run so poorly that they, for a lack of better words, suck. I believe that these are two big problems with our nation's universities marching bands and pep bands. In this paper I will look at some of the reason behind these problems and I will also look at some solutions. 

There are hundreds of college football games televised every football season for the fans far and near to watch their favorite school play. In some areas of the country college football is a larger deal than the National Football League. Especially in the southeastern United States and areas without a professional football team. This is perfectly understandable too. The state of Alabama has no big four (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) team located within it therefore they must rely on local colleges and universities for their sports entertainment. Why would you need one when five of the last seven NCAA FBS national champions have come through Alabama schools? The University of Alabama has won four of those titles and Auburn University won the other title. This dominance included a four year stretch where the champion came from Alabama in 2009 through 2012. You can bet on the state of Alabama tuning into their television and rooting for the Crimson Tide of the Tigers. Yet if you were to tune into games that these schools participate in or any other school in this nation you would hardly ever see. This is very interesting to me for multiple reasons. There are countless things that go on during a game day experience that are worthy of getting on television and many of them always do. The cheerleaders seem to often get onto a broadcast. Granted they usually focus in on just a few but they still get their air time. This confuses me because the band has the same job as the cheerleaders, to lead cheers, and yet when comes to television time they seem to be overlooked. The mascots are always featured on the air and it too has the same job as the band and still yet you never see the band on television. If the school has a live mascot you better believe that it will get on television and yet the band never does and nine times out of ten the band is doing something way more interesting than that animal is. Even the student section has better chance of getting on television than the band. Elizabeth Geli explains why this is a common theme throughout televised games. One reason is that the broadcasting companies have predetermined what they are going to do when and where and if the band is not of that list they do not usually get on air. Sometimes if the game has an organizer then the organizer also has a definite say on whether or things will get onto television. One of the excuses some broadcasters use is that the band gets on the air every time they play at the stadium. They refer to the band as ambient sound that is part of a game day. Sometimes the bands are so bad that the broadcasting company just does not want to put specifically them to where the public can see them. These happenings are something that is an easy thing to get around. Share the air time with the band, even if they are a horrible ensemble. There is no reason not to. It would be a good thing for many reasons. Firstly if the band was televised then the people watching it at home would get a better experience. It would further improve the broadcaster's goal of making the at home experience more like actually being at the game. It would also give friends and family members that are not able to get to the fame a chance to see their loved one in action at a college football game. I do not believe that this would be an issue to do for the television companies. Just as they pan to the cheerleaders or mascot before or after a commercial break they could pan to the band in the stands and feature them. I think that every party involved would, if not benefit, not be hurt by this decision.

Another large part of a game day for the band is performing on the field before the game and also during halftime. Neither of these things are usually televised. I know for me and the Carolina band this past 2015 season our pregame made it onto television for about fifteen seconds of the first game of the year at the Belk College Kickoff in Charlotte, North Carolina versus the North Carolina Tar Heels. I feel like the reason that we got onto the air at this particular game is because it being the kickoff game there was nothing else for them to show before the fame started. It was also because that the Carolina Band is a lot bigger and better than the Tar Heel band. We watched that video countless times on the ride back from Charlotte to Columbia. That proves my point that the students that participate in marching band do enjoy getting on television. Halftimes are also a rarity during a broadcast of a college football game. I remember only once seeing a band televised. It was the University of Wisconsin's marching band playing during the halftime of the first ever Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis, Indiana. I am sure the participants of that band enjoyed seeing themselves and I am sure the friends and family members also enjoyed seeing their loved one on television. 

There are a couple of good reason why broadcasting companies do not air the shows of college marching bands. One big reason is that many times the music a college marching band will play is not owned by them and can therefore be sued by the people that do. This is very evident by playing any NCAA football video game. When you play as South Carolina the songs that are played when you score or do something good are "Go Carolina" and "Cocky's 2001." They cannot play are actual fight song, "Step to the Rear," because the music comes from the Broadway play "How Now Dow Jones." Since the writers of that play own the song the University of South Carolina only has rights to play it, not to profit from it. This makes perfect sense to me because the band, the school, and the broadcaster do not want to be sued. But many times the songs that are played are not copyrighted and the television company still does not show the video when they could. I have found proof of this in the halftime video from the South Carolina vs. Citadel game this past season. The video begins with the television commentators talking taking the viewers at home to commercial. When they cut out the video stays the same. This show that the television cameramen recorded the entirety of halftime and the broadcaster did not air it. This halftime show could have been shown on the air because every song that Carolina Band played where all public domain because they were a medley of service songs and hymns.  But they did not and I think this is a problem because as hard as the band works to get their show ready for game day they should get equal television rights as other members on a game day.

Being in most college marching band is very similar to having a job in the fall. Marching band takes up a very large portion of time throughout a week in college. Most bands rehearse about one to two hours a day 3 to five days a week. Every school has a different way of doing things but here at Carolina Band we rehearse one and one half hours a day for four days a week. Then after that hard week of work you have an up to twelve hour game day on Saturday. Not only is the band responsible for football games but also volleyball games as well as other different appearances the band is asked to be at. With all of this you could be looking at a twenty hour work week. That is equivalent to a part time job at many companies. Therefore I think this is one reason that the participants of college marching bands should get some sort of compensation for their time.

Not only is time commitment a reason for compensation but also the physical demands that come with the activity. Every marching band program is ran differently and the physical demands of the show also vary from school to school. In 2005 ESPN did a special where they tested some of the physical toll taken on the body when someone participates in marching band. The person they tested was a tenor (drums) player for The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps from Rosemont, Illinois. Drum corps is a much more physically demanding setting of marching band than the setting of college marching band however they are similar. Drum corps is a summer sport where you practice all day every day and perform at competitions throughout the country. The shows are longer, the music is harder, and the drill is harder. The facts that where gained from this study were that the person they tested showed the following similarities with other athletes; oxygen consumption is similar to that of a marathon runner, the heart rate is similar to a short distance sprinter, and that even when he was not performing just hearing the music was enough to trigger these happenings. To further prove these findings I talked with someone who did this activity, Hunter Roberts. Hunter marched with the Music City Drum and Bugle corps out of Nashville, Tennessee. He said just by listening to the recording his heart race increased and he could go over all the movements he performed in that show. I can, and others can also do that with our pregame show here as South Carolina, and can do it for some halftime shows that Carolina Band did throughout the previous season. Many of the same physical traits that are in sports athletes are similarly shown is the people that participate in college marching bands. Some people do not believe that while there is some activity done in marching band that there is no correlation. Some of the opinions of people that believe this can be found in the interviews done by Allison Toh and Stanley Yip. The interviewers said that there were many differences between regular athletics and marching band. They said that there were not as much knowledge and lessons learned as well as solidarity in marching band as much as team sports players do. They also do not compete the same way as the people that participate in team sports. All of these things are false as pointed to in several sources.  In an article by Lautzenheiser he states many of the learning benefits of participating in marching bands. Some of the learning outcomes of band that correlate with sports are quality, discipline, and ethics. Another article by Amber Peterson of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio did studies on the benefits of band to the brain whereas many sports today cause damage to the brain and body over the course of years participated in. Another article by Carolyn Steckel from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma said that people that participate in music experience the same "flow" state that athletes experience during a game. Our student athletes at the collegiate level get paid in the form of scholarships, I believe that the people that participate in college marching bands for the school should get compensation for their time and effort in a similar manner to the athletes.

Anyone that works for a college athletics works very hard to ensure that your game day experience lives up to the spectator's full expectations. Many of these people get paid a fair sum of money and if applicable get on the air during a national television broadcast. All I am asking through this paper is to give that equal right to the participants of college marching bands through fair compensation through scholarships for their hard work and time commitment and to give them equal television time during a broadcast.


