During the month of June, FanLabel celebrates its proud Detroit roots with a Motown-themed fantasy season.
How to Play:
The season itself is made up of four separate one-week challenges. Virtual Royalties are awarded to all labels that participate, depending on placement on the weekly leaderboard. The three labels to earn the most streams season-long earn a massive Royalty bonus for the contest.
Once entered into a Fantasy Contest, you’re given a Signing Budget of 10,000 FanLabel Dollars. Your task is to use this budget to sign the artists you believe will attain the most combined streams during the contest’s duration. This takes into account each artist’s full catalog of music. That means you can evaluate and swap artists out after each week ends and the new week begins. The challenge, however, is that the artists’ cost varies based on their weekly streaming total.
Now, let’s talk about the artists featured in this month’s Fantasy Contest, the legends and innovators of the iconic Motown sound.
- The Temptations
- Marvin Gaye
- The Supremes
- The Jackson 5
- Stevie Wonder
- Smokey Robinson
- Four Tops
- Lionel Richie
- The Isley Brothers
- Mary Wells
- The Marvelettes
- The Spinners
- Rick James
- The Contours
- Gladys Knight & the Pips
Today, music success is based on streaming data, which is the key component to scoring in a FanLabel Fantasy Contest. This particular contest offers a unique challenge, as obviously music streaming did not exist at the height of Motown’s popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, when things like sales and radio airplay reigned supreme.
So, how do successful Motown artists translate to today’s streaming standards? Well, it varies.
The most recognizable Motown acts such as The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the Isley Brothers are each pulling in close to, or more than, eight-figure weekly streaming numbers. Their music is timeless. These are considered the highest-streamers in this Fantasy Contest and therefore will take up the majority of your budget by signing just one of them. Is that strategy worth taking a top-streamer and hindering your ability to form the rest of your lineup, or is it better to build a more consistent, value team with more cost-effective artists? You decide.
Other popular acts such as The Supremes, The Jackson 5, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson, Rick James, Lionel Richie and Gladys Knight and the Pips are also pulling in streams in the multi-millions on a weekly basis. They may range anywhere from 2 million to 6 million streams in a given week. It would be a fine strategy to build your lineup in FanLabel with this level of artists.
Then you have other artists in the contests who were juggernauts of the genre, such as the “Queen of Motown,” Mary Wells, The Contours and The Marvelttes — all of whom are still pulling in fairly high streaming numbers, but are considered the lowest tiered artists in this group and thus the least expensive artists for your budget. Will their full music catalog provide a bang for your buck and be a steal at their low price, or are they unable to compete with the top-level and mid-tier artists?
Fun facts about a few of these Motown artists:
- The Temptations were the first Motown act to win a GRAMMY Award in 1969, and remain popular to this day, accumulating more than 245 million streams so far in 2020.
- In addition to being known as the “Queen of Motown,”the late Mary Wells was also known as the “First Lady of Motown,” however, she was actually the third female to sign with the label. She brought in one million streams last week.
- Stevie Wonder has sold more than 100 million records and won 25 GRAMMYs. According to Alpha Data (formerly BuzzAngle), he has nearly 2 billion lifetime streams.
- The Supremes are Motown’s most commercially successful act with 12 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The group also does well in streaming, pulling in about 3 million weekly streams.
- Marvin Gaye is credited for helping shape the unique Motown sound in the 1960s, earning the nicknames the “Prince of Motown.” To date in 2020, he has amassed over 223 million streams this year.
Payouts:
As mentioned, payouts are given out at the end of each weekly contest, and for the season itself. The payout structure is as follows:
Weekly rewards
– Top-five percent of entries: 10,000 Royalties
– Next 11 percent of entries: 7,500 Royalties
– Next 12 percent of entries: 5,000 Royalties
– Next 33 percent of entries: 2,500 Royalties
– Remaining entrants: 500 Royalties
Full season
– First place: 20,000 Royalties
– Second place: 15,000 Royalties
– Third place: 10,000 Royalties
Banking up your Royalties is important in FanLabel because it affects your standing on the leaderboard, allows you to buy additional Fantasy Contest Passes and gives you more virtual currency to work with when perusing the FanLabel Marketplace.
