It is supposed to be random but some times it is ridiculous. A friend of mine Viral Infections sold his entire team and has just three players left all worth less than $4,000 a week and still got four balls for "I am familiar with the star players..." while another friend of mine the Goldfish has sold one player since October and gets 1 1/2 balls.
I personally think the fan surver is complete crap. I had my TV and Rivalry game the first game of the season and CT'd it but lost by 6 points (when it was 2 point game with a minute to go my coach thought it would be a great time to have all my starters on the bench) so for the entire season I have had 1/2 a ball for both those aspects of the survey. That is way too much effect, if I had scored 7 more points would it have been 5 balls for the entire season and me getting $50,000 extra a week? Stupid.