Clark Atlanta University Mighty Marching Panther Band Exhibition at The Gathering 2023 

That's why students won't attend because they don't see them. BOTB is about the big bands 💰. Small schools bands need that money also

Well, it actually has to do with smaller schools not dedicating enough scholarship money toward the fine arts departments. Even though the HBOTBs committee changed the criteria in recent years, they used to have a rule that they chose at least 2 schools from each of the 4 HBCU conferences and 2 schools that were considered "Independent". That way at least 4 of the 10 schools performing were going to be smaller schools. Then the committee cut down on the number of bands performing and also got rid of the "representative from each conference" rule. So that pretty much eliminated smaller schools having a level playing field, when it came to choosing which bands to pick. I remember going to the Honda BOTBs several times in the earlier years and of the 18 years of the Honda BOTBs, CAU has been 6 times. There are other corporate-sponsored BOTBs that are equally (if not bigger). So yeah you are right, it has gotten more difficult for smaller bands to be invited to these types of BOTBs since all the organizers only want the bigger "social media popular" bands.

I agree.