Grant Frerking on NIL impact at Tennessee: 'It's not tearing apart the locker room'

The NIL discussion has heated up over the last few months as deals get bigger and NIL Collectives become more prominent. Questions also rose about how it’s impacting locker room chemistry — and On3’s Grant Frerking shared his perspective on Wednesday.

Frerking, a Tennessee wide receiver who serves as president of On3’s NIL U, said there haven’t been any issues in the Volunteers locker room. In fact, he shared why he thinks NIL has more benefits from an education standpoint.

“I’ve been in a locker room,” Frerking told Finebaum. “I’ve been in it since July 1 kicked off, and I’ve been through it … from the little deals to the bigger deals to the collectives. It’s not tearing apart the locker room, and it hasn’t yet. I’ve seen that at the biggest stage of SEC football, right?

“Part of that is because … this now is reality and it’s teaching kids life skills of what life’s going to be like down the road. Five, ten years. That’s fast-tracking those life skills. At some points in their life, the person who you didn’t think did any work at work all day is getting the promotion and getting the Christmas bonus, but it wasn’t your turn that year and maybe the boss didn’t favor you as much. They’re going to learn that someday.”

Frerking, who arrived at Tennessee from the Class of 2017, has 7.9k followers on his Twitter and Instagram pages. As a result, he has an NIL Valuation of $28k.

Grant Frerking: ‘Every guy is making money’

Frerking also talked about how it’s not just the stars making money from NIL deals. He said the NIL collectives are helping get more than just the big-name athletes involved with agreements, which shows the impact social media can have when the deals come to fruition.

“College athletics is a performance-based business,” Frerking said. “And the same guys that are producing are the same guys that are going to find opportunities.

“But there’s also a lot of guys out there that do really good things in the community, have really powerful brands, are huge on social media and might not be making all the plays on Saturday. They’re making a boatload of money in NIL, too. And a lot of these collectives and a lot of these NIL initiatives in these college towns are including the full 125-man roster like it is in football. So every guy is making money.”