Fox Chapel grad builds massive social media following for sports-themed videos

Usually, when someone from the Pittsburgh region has success in the business or entertainment world, that person or company often relocates to New York City or Los Angeles.

But for Fox Chapel graduate Frank Smith, the reverse is true.

Smith recently moved his entertainment operation — consisting mainly of sports postings on YouTube or TikTok — from the palm trees of L.A. to the seasonal temperature swings of O’Hara Township.

Smith, 27, is the CEO and founder of FMS Productions LLC and has become a social media sensation. He has accumulated 1.6 million total followers on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

During the pandemic, Smith was working for a sports media brand and discovered he could do plenty on his own.

“I moved to L.A. to work for ClutchPoints for their creative team, doing videos and website work for YouTube,” Smith said. “Two weeks into covid April of ’20, I didn’t feel I could keep it going in L.A. and thought I could do better on my own coming back here.”

The move has worked. He bought the same house he grew up in. He has his brother, Roy, and Fox Chapel friend Jack Farber as employees and he’s done more than 600 video productions in a basement he played in as a youngster.

Smith has a small home studio and doesn’t need to pay rent for a large, big-city studio.

“The challenge is turning an 8-minute video on YouTube condensed to 1-minute,” Smith said. “I know people have short attention spans.”

One video Smith is proud of depicts the journey of Toronto Raptors power forward Pascal Siakam, a native of Cameroon who played for New Mexico State.

Said Smith: “Pascal was going to be a priest in Africa. He went to a basketball camp and decided not to become a priest; he went to school and ended up with the 2019 NBA champions.”

Another example of Smith’s work is a piece on President John Tyler, who was in the White House during the 1840s, but still has a living grandson.

Tyler’s second wife, much younger than him, gave birth in the 1860s before Tyler died. The son also had a much-younger wife who gave birth in the 1920s to a man now 95.

It all started for Smith as a student at Dorseyville Middle School. When not playing sports himself, he and his brother and friends started to write, film and edit small skits for his YouTube channel during that platform’s infancy. His channel soon generated thousands of followers — heady stuff for a 14-year-old.

The collection of his posts includes multiple videos with more than 10 million views apiece.

Smith’s love of sports is natural. His great-grandfather, “Greenfield” Jimmy Smith, was an infielder for the 1919 World Series-winning Cincinnati Reds, who defeated the infamous, scandal-plagued Chicago White Sox.

Great-uncle Billy Conn was a hall of fame boxer, a world light-heavyweight champion who nearly defeated reigning heavyweight champ Joe Louis in 1941 in what would have been an upset comparable to Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson in 1990.

A second cousin is Leah Smith, the Oakland Catholic graduate who was a U.S. Olympic swimmer, winning a gold and bronze in 2016.

After lettering in basketball and golf at Fox Chapel, he went to Miami (Ohio), earning a degree in interactive media studies.