Cynthia Frelund was born on August 24, 1979, in Okemos, Michigan, and is an American sports television analyst, data scientist, and podcast host.
She serves as the NFL Network’s first dedicated predictive analytics expert, a role she has held since August 2016.
Her career path took her from finance to fitness to football media, with stops at Fusion, the NFL League Office, Disney ABC, and ESPN along the way.
Who is Cynthia Frelund?
Cynthia Frelund is an American television sports analyst and writer who works for NFL Network, the broadcasting arm of the National Football League.
She specializes in predictive analytics, using statistical models and data science to break down player and team performance for a national television audience.
Frelund became NFL Media’s first analytics expert when she joined the network in 2016. Since then, she has appeared regularly on NFL Fantasy Live, NFL GameDay Morning, NFL GameDay View, and NFL Network’s Super Bowl, NFL Draft, and NFL Scouting Combine coverage.
She also writes a column called “Game Theory” for the NFL’s official website and co-hosts the podcast Game Theory and Money alongside Matt “Money” Smith. Her work spans on-air analysis, digital content, and advanced statistical modeling.
Her path to sports media ran through biology, finance, and fitness before she found her way to NFL broadcasting, making her background unlike nearly anyone else in the industry.
Early Life of Cynthia Frelund
Cynthia Frelund grew up in Okemos, Michigan, a small community near Lansing. Her parents are MacGyver and Mary Anne.
As a child, she dreamed of becoming a scientist, a passion that her biology degree and later work in predictive analytics would partly fulfill.
She attended Okemos High School, where she lettered in both soccer and volleyball. Sports were a central part of her upbringing, and her lifelong love of the NFL began in Okemos with Detroit Lions legend Barry Sanders as her childhood football hero.
After high school, she left Michigan for Boston to begin her undergraduate studies. Her competitive athletic background and interest in numbers shaped the foundation of her later media career.
Cynthia Frelund Age
Cynthia Frelund is 46 years old as of 2026, born on August 24, 1979. Her zodiac sign is Virgo, a sign associated with precision and analytical thinking.
She did not make her first sports television appearance until she was around 31 years old. By then, she had already built a substantial background in finance and data analysis that would set her apart in sports media.
Cynthia Frelund Ethnicity and Nationality
Cynthia Frelund holds American nationality, born and raised in Okemos, Michigan. Her ethnic background is White American, and she identifies as an American both personally and professionally.
Her roots in Michigan, a state with deep ties to the Detroit Lions and NFL football culture, gave her an early connection to professional football.
That midwestern upbringing, combined with her academic path through Boston and Chicago, shaped both her worldview and her analytical approach to sports.
Cynthia Frelund Height and Weight
Cynthia Frelund stands at 5 feet 6 inches tall, which equals approximately 1.68 meters. Her weight is not publicly confirmed, though she maintains an active lifestyle as a marathon runner and former certified fitness instructor.
She is also a former certified Pilates and group fitness instructor. From 2007 to 2012, she taught Pilates and group fitness classes at Equinox, having earned her certification from the East Bank Club in Chicago in 2005.
Cynthia Frelund Education
Frelund graduated from Boston College with a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 2005. She lettered in soccer and volleyball at Okemos High School before enrolling at Boston College, where she also became involved in the VP Marketing Club at Kellogg.
After briefly exploring medical school and then financial analysis, she returned to academia. She enrolled at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where she earned a Master of Business Administration in Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation, and also completed a Master of Science in Predictive Analytics.
Her dual graduate degrees gave her the unusual combination of financial modeling skills and statistical forecasting expertise that she later applied directly to NFL analytics.
Cynthia Frelund Career
Cynthia Frelund began her professional career in 2005 as a financial analyst at Fusion Finance, a global business solutions firm. She started in an analyst role and quickly rose to senior analyst. By 2008, she had joined the NFL League Office, working directly for the league’s Chief Financial Officer, Anthony Noto.
Her work at the League Office included projects such as modeling financial projections for an expanded 18-game season and contributing analytical support to the Los Angeles Rams relocation effort. After a brief tenure in that role, she moved into media and business development.
From Finance to ESPN
In 2010, Frelund joined Disney ABC Television Group as a Business Development Manager, a role she held for two years. In December 2012, she moved to ESPN as Associate Director of Technology Development.
During her time at ESPN, she held several roles, including Producer and Next Generation Content Strategist. By 2015, she became ESPN’s SportsCenter Predictive Analytics Analyst, putting her data-driven approach in front of a national audience for the first time.
Her work at ESPN gave her on-air television experience and proved that her statistical approach could connect with general sports fans, not just industry professionals.
NFL Network: First Analytics Expert
In August 2016, Frelund left ESPN to join NFL Network as a Predictive Analytics Expert. The position made her the first dedicated analytics expert in NFL Media history.
Since joining the network, she has appeared across a range of high-profile NFL Network programs. Her regular shows include NFL Fantasy Live, NFL GameDay Morning, and NFL GameDay View. She also covers the Super Bowl, NFL Scouting Combine, and NFL Draft for the network each year.
She covered Super Bowl LI in February 2017, her first Super Bowl as an NFL Network analyst, at NRG Stadium in Houston. Frelund has covered every Super Bowl since. Her “Cyn City” segments on NFL Network break down award races, player efficiency metrics, and win projections throughout the season.
Predictive Model and Podcast
Frelund built a proprietary statistical model that simulates NFL games millions of times to forecast outcomes. The model incorporated artificial intelligence and machine learning updates for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, including computer vision data from live games.
Her model achieved a 71.7% success rate in forecasting 2024 regular-season winners. Notable projections from her work include an early focus on the Detroit Lions in 2018 and midseason analyses of MVP races based on efficiency metrics.
Along with her on-air role, she co-hosts the Game Theory and Money podcast with Matt “Money” Smith. On Instagram, she also references her show Numbers Game under the handle @numbersgme, which covers sports data analysis in audio and digital format.
Cynthia Frelund and Bright Pink
Outside her professional career, Frelund runs marathons for Bright Pink, a national nonprofit focused on preventing and detecting breast and ovarian cancer in young women. She has completed 25 marathons and works toward a goal of running one in every US state.
Her partnership with Bright Pink carries personal meaning. Frelund was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 26. She underwent a two-year treatment and recovery period.
Since her recovery, she has actively promoted cancer awareness, particularly cancers affecting women’s reproductive health, using her platform to advocate for early detection and prevention.
Cynthia Frelund Fiancé
Cynthia Frelund is engaged to Kyle Deombeleg. The Boston College alumni magazine, in its Winter 2025 issue, reported that the two were planning a wedding before the start of the 2025 football season and that Frelund was undergoing IVF treatments at the time of publication.
Whether the wedding took place before the 2025 season is not publicly confirmed as of August 2026.
Frelund has kept her personal life largely private throughout her career, rarely discussing relationships in public interviews.
The engagement to Deombeleg marks the first time she has publicly acknowledged a romantic partner.
Cynthia Frelund Net Worth
Cynthia Frelund’s estimated net worth is $3 million as of 2026. Her income comes primarily from her position at NFL Network, where she serves as the league’s first predictive analytics expert, and from her podcast work on Game Theory and Money.
Frelund’s additional income streams include speaking engagements at events like the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, where she has appeared as a featured speaker.
Her background in finance, data science, and sports media gives her a distinctive professional profile that commands strong value across multiple platforms.
Cynthia Frelund Social Media
Cynthia Frelund is active on Instagram at @cynthiafrelund and on X (formerly Twitter) at @cfrelund. Her Instagram bio describes her work as “mostly NFL Data Science” for NFL Network and promotes her Numbers Game content.
She also maintains a presence on TikTok under the same handle, @cynthiafrelund. Her social media content focuses primarily on NFL data analysis, fantasy football insights, and behind-the-scenes moments from her work on NFL Network.
The Bottom Line
Cynthia Frelund joined NFL Network in August 2016 as the league’s first predictive analytics expert, covering every Super Bowl since Super Bowl LI in Houston in 2017.
She beat ovarian cancer at age 26 and now runs marathons in partnership with Bright Pink to support breast and ovarian cancer prevention for young women.
As of 2026, she continues her work on NFL GameDay Morning, NFL Fantasy Live, and the Game Theory and Money podcast, bringing her proprietary statistical model to a national audience each football season.
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