Many sports media outlets have recently seen increased discussions about conflicts of interest. In many cases, these conflicts have been disclosed to both employers and the public; they can still be questioned, but viewers or readers at least are aware of them. According to Shannon Terry, the founder and CEO of On3, this was not the case with former employee Grant Frerking, who served as a consultant for University of Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel while also holding the positions of president of NIL University and director of athlete network development at On3.
Here’s the full text of that post, which Terry put out on X Thursday in response to a Knoxville News Sentinel story from Adam Sparks on Frerking (which has since been updated to reflect Terry’s comment):
On3 had no knowledge of this relationship. Grant was explicitly instructed not to engage, either directly or indirectly, with the University of Tennessee or its associated collective. On multiple occasions during his employment, he was asked to confirm compliance with this directive, and he repeatedly denied any involvement. These representations were false. He lied to us.
The Frerking saga is notable on several levels. Frerking was a significant figure in On3’s NIL efforts, and was particularly cited as a key figure in arranging their NIL summits, involving speakers from ESPN CFB analyst Kirk Herbstreit to former LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne to chief marketing officers of Fortune 100 brands. He also often represented On3 in interviews on other media outlets.
Those media appearances included repeated appearances on SEC Network’s The Paul Finebaum Show , appearance on Tomi Lahren’s Fox Nation show, appearances on Outkick 360 and The Athletic podcasts, and more. And while it wouldn’t have been unexpected for Frerking to have some fondness for the Volunteers considering his 2017-22 playing career with that team (he started as a walk-on, and while he only saw limited on-field action, he was cited as a member of the team’s leadership council), there’s a difference between that and serving as a paid consultant to a coach while also offering seemingly-independent commentary on that coach and program. And the latter is what’s under discussion here.
Sparks wrote that Tennessee provided the paper with documents indicating that Frerking worked for the university as a Nashville-based part-time consultant from July 2023 through this month, earning $30,000 for that role. (His contract expires as of June 30, but he no longer works for the school, and they don’t owe him any further pay.) Frerking’s duties there included “advising and consulting football coaches on best practices to navigate the current college football climate,” “assisting and advising Heupel and staff on off-field matters related to the program, both internally and externally,” “aiding in future development of program by speaking on panels and attending events (which included numerous appearances on ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ on SEC Network),” and more.
Frederking started with On3 almost two years earlier, in August 2021. He began work there ahead of his second-to-last season playing for Tennessee, then continued there after his playing career ended. He then worked there through May 27 of this year, leaving amidst "allegations of criminal misconduct" as per an On3 statement.
Those "allegations of criminal misconduct" are the wider issue here. Sparks and colleagues Mike Wilson and Tyler Whetstone covered a lot of that in a separate piece Thursday, which looks at how Frerking “gained fame during his playing career as the teenage CEO of what was described as a $1 million company” but “has tumbled into a mess of financial scams and legal issues that have him asking former Vols athletes for loans.”
That piece describes claims of Frerking saying he still worked at the Metro Straw ground cover company he founded while still a Tennessee player (which received no mention in his biography). writeup in The Athletic back in 2018) for years after his departure. It has accounts from people who say he used that connection (which the company disavowed in an undated online post this year, saying they parted ways with him years ago) to scam people ordering straw into making direct Venmo payments to someone associated with him and not receiving any product. There are also discussions of unpaid rent, evictions, unpaid limo fees, and more.
Those other allegations are more significant in the big picture than the discussion of Frerking working for On3 and Tennessee at the same time. And there have been many discussions over the years of players-turned-broadcasters’ roles with their former teams, Udonis Haslem to Tom Brady to Grant Hill , David Ortiz , and Jessica Mendoza ; while some of those situations (Mendoza’s in particular) have ended with the broadcasters shifting away from commentary on that sport, most have seen them continue despite ties to a former team.
But this situation goes beyond those in one crucial way: the lack of disclosure. Terry’s note here that Frerking “was explicitly prohibited” from engaging with Tennessee or its collective while working for On3, and the surrounding claim that “he lied to us,” suggests he and that company were not on board with the dual role Frerking ultimately wound up with here. Beyond that, it’s certainly strange that Frerking’s role with Tennessee included “aiding in future development of program by speaking on panels and attending events (which included numerous appearances on ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ on SEC Network)”; the claim that Tennessee paid Frerking to appear there, presumably without that program’s knowledge, carries some questions for both sides.
That may lead to more discussions about dual roles in the college media/NIL space in particular. And those have heated up recently on other fronts, including with another situation at Ohio State drawing scrutiny earlier this year. Many of the specific details of the claims against Frerking may not be more widely relevant, but conversations about media employees also working for schools or collectives certainly are.
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