Have you drafted yet? It’s fantasy football draft season. Millions are building power rankings, debating sleepers, running mock drafts, and pretending they’re NFL GMs. As I was preparing for mine, the parallel between fantasy football and RockTernative business hit me like Myles Garrett blowing up the pocket.
Because fantasy football is like business — resource allocation, investing and divesting, just like RockTernative radio.
Fantasy players know there’s real strategy involved — the kind you only learn from experience, knowing ball, or having that friend who can draft a team for you. Notably, draft strategy is real, and it can make or break your season or your station.
Take a QB too early, and you’ll likely get cooked.
Overpay a morning show, and there goes the ROI.
Over-rely on a heavy-load RB, and one injury destroys you.
Shrink and overwork the staff, and quality goes south.
Big names are great, but productivity is better.
Then there are salary cap and auction leagues, where every dollar becomes another draft decision. Spend too early and you’re broke by Week 9. Conversely, spend too late and you miss the move that could’ve taken you to the Super Bowl.
That’s exactly where the RockTernative parallel kicks in. Radio has its windows of opportunity — and a salary cap — we just don’t see it like we once did.
Back in the Day
Back in the day, PDs had actual spreadsheets — itemized budgets, month by month, line by line. “Awesome, I have T-shirt money this month!” And those budgets were usually locked and dependable — they allowed brands to build a strategy and stick to it.
Today, “the budget” is often recreated monthly, and it’s mostly payroll and keeping-the-lights-on stuff like rent, Nielsen, insurance, music licensing. Emergency funding for research or tactical might be possible, but it’s almost never approved in advance. Forget about T-shirts.
But the draft is coming. The need to make key decisions will come. When should you spend? What should you spend on? When should you be conservative? When should you take a risk? And when should you make a move that could win the season?
The RockTernative Draft
I could argue that every season is draft season at RockTernative. Do we draft a perceptual, an OMT, a concert? Do we hire someone to create more digital content? Mic 4 in mornings versus digital marketing — which will move the needle more? Would outsourcing production to have live nights drive more revenue?
The downsizing of the industry takes a new piece of our hearts every quarter. But look around — clusters are empty. Radio can no longer afford the rosters it once had, so every draft choice is critically important.
Every PD needs to think like a GM, and every GM needs to think like a PD. Why? Because every station is a roster, and every roster is open for review, improvement, cuts, and more.
Your Roster Construction Challenge
Here’s a light exercise to sharpen your roster construction or draft chops because you may need those chops sooner than you think.
You must draft one of each. You only have $11M. Go.
How’d your band turn out? Hard to go wrong here, but you get the point. How you draft, spend, and construct your roster means everything. Is yours built to stack as many wins as possible? Did you consider different scenarios and compare ROI?
It’s reality. Do we go all-in on mornings or spend evenly across dayparts? Do we invest more on imaging instead of a new van? Should we sacrifice contests if it means live weekends?
Decisions like that, when stacked over time, eventually add up to where you are.
The $20,000 Challenge
Let’s say you’ve been given $20,000 cash to giveaway to grow weekday numbers. It must be spent in September. How will you execute? Not unlike deciding which RB1 to choose in fantasy, the strategy here is important. Same cash, lots of different strategies — which one will be best for your situation?
$100 giveaway, 10x per day.
$250 giveaway, 4x per day.
$333.33, 3x per day.
$500 giveaway, 2x per day.
$1,000 giveaway, 1x per day.
$2,500 Fridays.
$5,000 Mondays.
Most PDs and talent play fantasy football. Sadly, most aren’t included in the budget process at their stations. If that’s you, get involved. Initiate, be loud, bring smart ideas, be a part of the station drafts and trades.
And if you’re a GM, talk with your PD — because that seemingly simple cost cut could lead to a crisis you didn’t foresee. But it could’ve been healed by a band-aid if done differently.
Fantasy football or RockTernative radio — draft and build the roster and playbook wisely. Every decision counts on the scoreboard.
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Keith Cunningham is a music industry and Rock/Alternative columnist for Barrett Media and the founder of Black Box Group, a modern-modeled creative & strategic consultancy built for brands that need strategies with teeth. He’s the former Master of Mayhem at 95.5 KLOS-FM in Los Angeles for over a decade, a nationwide consultant, and has been repeatedly voted one of America’s top Program Directors and strategic thinkers. Keith has built his career by taking multi-million-dollar brands from worst to first and leading Marconi & Gracie award winners along the way. A data nerd with a rock-and-roll heart, he is an advisory council member for St. Jude fundraising, a fantasy football champion, and lover of his daughters & dogs. Reach him at keithblackboxgroup@gmail.com or on LinkedIn or X.