Sports radio hosts move on to The Next Round

The phrase carries several different meanings with sports enthusiasts.

The next round of drinks. The next round of golf. The next round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

For Jim Dunaway, Lance Taylor, Ryan Brown and Sean Heninger (almost exclusively known as “Rockstar”), The Next Round is the culmination of a vision and the newest chapter in the group’s journey together.

They went live for the first time Aug. 16, after two months away from a live microphone. The four have been together since January 2010, hosting The Roundtable on WJOX 94.5 FM in Birmingham until mid-June.

It’s been “head-spinning” to this point, but they are off and running once again, talking Southeastern Conference football and whatever other sports and entertainment topics that day presents.

“It’s been pretty incredible,” Taylor said. “You try to visualize something that you’re putting together yourselves, something that we’ve dreamed about for a long time.”

A leap of faith

The decision to leave JOX was an amicable one. The four combined for nearly 80 years of work at the station and were even offered a contract extension to stay on. But this felt like the right time to pursue a new opportunity.

Thus, the formation of DBL Down Media and The Next Round. After years on an audio-only platform, the show has expanded to visual mediums. Dunaway and Brown have done television work for many years, but there was certainly an adjustment period for all of them.

“We’ve gotten in a groove now, and everything does feel normal, even though it’s a new platform, studio and such. It took a minute to get comfortable,” Brown said.

The Next Round is live each day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch and just about any other digital platform. The Next Round mobile app is available in the App Store and on Google Play. The show is also streamed on nextroundlive.com.

Basically, the show can be found anywhere but the traditional radio dial.

Becoming their own bosses has a definite payoff, but getting everything set up was no small feat. Aside from handling the logistics of forming an LLC, setting up payroll services and many other administrative tasks, there was the main hurdle: finding a place to build a studio.

They found a home in the Blue Lake Center, just off the Interstate 459 and U.S. 280 interchange. There were less than two weeks from the time they gained access to the building to the first show.

“We did not do a run-through on the equipment until the day before our first show,” Brown said. “That’s how close to the wire we were to getting this thing pulled off.”

Heninger says it is still scary every day, knowing how much has gone into making it all come together, but he also greatly appreciates the freedom the group has to take the show in any direction.

“There was stuff we wanted to do. It was a leap of faith, and we’re still taking it, but so far, so good,” he said.

But, he added, “the least stressful part was 9 a.m. on Aug. 16. Once we got to do what we do again, the weight was taken off.”

A marriage that’s worked

Dunaway and Brown had a show together on AM radio, while Taylor and Heninger had been together since about 2005. When the four were joined together at JOX at the turn of the calendar in 2010, there were surely doubts of how the new dynamic would develop.

Fast forward 11 years, and there’s no end in sight.

“Oh, we have no idea,” Taylor said when asked how it worked out so well. “For whatever reason, our personalities are so different, it just came together. There’s the old saying ‘opposites attract,’ but we do have a lot of similarities, too. It’s really just meshed.”

Their personalities complement each other. At the desk, Brown, Dunaway and Taylor can talk about anything and everything. From behind the glass, Rockstar chimes in with piercing one-liners and adds flair to the show with regular segments (Rockstar’s Playhouse is unique to say the least).

“Never did I ever think in the first month of the show I would be on Twitter and have video of me in my underwear,” Heninger said. “Stuff like that isn’t planned. It just happens. I don’t think we could pull it off if it wasn’t organic.”

The group has become so tight-knit that there were no hesitations or lack of trust when deciding to enter new territory together.

“The whole belief in your team is critical,” Brown said. “It was non-negotiable. We were all on board, or we weren’t going to do it. That was understood from the beginning. We’ve got whole faith in one another, and we all want the same level of success. Without that, there’s no way this works.”

The commitment from Brown, Dunaway, Taylor and Heninger was tangible as well. Real sacrifices were made by all involved.

“We’ve all put our own money into this,” Dunaway said. “This is our money, we’ve built this out. People have refinanced houses, sold houses, taken money out of savings to invest in this. It’s exciting and scary, but it’s also a life work, and that’s what this is for us.”

The first new addition to the team has been director of video Scott Forester, who previously worked at ABC 33/40 and is widely considered the best sports videographer in the area.

“We honestly didn’t think we could pry him away,” Brown said. “We thought, let’s take him to lunch and we made the pitch. If we could get Scott, we’ve got the dream team.”

“It’s been the core four of us, and we’ve added people we feel like fit in with us,” Dunaway said. “It’s been neat to come to work in an atmosphere where everybody’s pulling in the same direction.”

A part of the city’s fabric

For listeners and viewers in central Alabama, one of the most appealing facets of The Next Round crew is the sense of connectedness they all share to the community. The stories of their childhood are relatable, and they all currently live in the area.

Brown is from Calhoun County, Dunaway from Alabaster, Taylor from Homewood and Heninger from Vestavia Hills. There was never a thought of them doing anything outside of Birmingham.

“One of the reasons we do what we do is we love this city,” Taylor said. “This city is such a big part of this job.”

They were blown away at the number of sponsors and supporters willing to follow them into their new venture, sight unseen.

“When we would tell them what happened [leaving WJOX], they always said, ‘We want in,’” Dunaway said. “We were like, ‘Well, we’re not to that point yet. We don’t know what we’re doing.’ They said, ‘It doesn’t matter, we’re in.’”

Many of those local sponsors were key in helping them get their new studio in working order before the first show.

“That was huge, to be able to use local companies,” Brown said. “Birmingham has been so good to us, and if we can, we want to give back in any way we can.”

Anyone in the country has access to The Next Round, but the people in Birmingham, and throughout the U.S. 280 corridor in particular, make the show what it is.

“It’s a big part of the fiber that we are, and we never want to lose that,” Taylor said. “The success that we’re having, whatever that is, is all based upon having great viewers and listeners and sponsors. We appreciate everything they do.”