More than 4 million viewers who tune in Fox NFL Sunday Last September they saw how the usual carefree smile of Rob Gronkowski gave way to a flash of terror when Terry Bradshaw, Michael Strahan and the rest of the team began to talk about the outstanding wing of the Dallas Cowboys, Rich Russo, a name that had not arisen during the preparation prior to the game of the program.
And rightly. This was not a memory lapse for Gronkowski, closed to four times Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots and the Bay Bucaneers Tampa. Russo did not exist. It was part of an elaborate joke to deceive the new member of the Fox team, who desperately tried to get out of a conversation that he knew nothing in what he thought was a live broadcast.
“Part of being an analyst consists of throwing nonsense,” says Gronk, 36, with a smile. “If you can do that, you are in very good hands.”
It is easy to see Gronkowski as the perfect target. Although he built a career worthy of the Hall of Fame throughout his 11 seasons in the NFL – with 92 TouchDown receptions and almost 9,300 yards received before retiring in 2022 -, he spent much of that time plated as the typical fool. In the Netflix program “The Roast of Tom Brady” Last year, comedian Nikki Glaser joked about Gronk, sitting on the pod: “You are not as dumb as you seem, you sound, you act and you are. You may be more silly,” adding mercilessly that it could be “the first person who was born with etc.”
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But that is not the complete image. “They believe it is just a cavernícola, but in reality you think everything with a lot “Dudes on Dudes” con Gronk y Jules . “It is very meticulous. It looks a lot at the details. You are not afraid of asking questions.”
Nor fear becoming fool. In fact, like the legend of the NBA Charles Barkley, who has increased his qualification that asthing the occasional error and mastering a look of confusion, Gronkowski has resorted to his affability and its nature, which describes itself as “simple”, to build one of the most requested personal marks of any retired ath of dollars that charged in salary and bonuses as a NFL player.
Adding its sponsorships with companies such as the Useaa insurer, the online sports betting house Fanduel and Monster Energy along with their work as a box in Fox and apparitions in events such as speaker or presenter, including the Gronk Beach Festival in Las Vegas and the University Soccer Bowl in southern California, Forbes He estimates that Gronkowski wins at least $ 10 million annually of his commercial efforts before taxes and agent fees.
“People thought it was a fool, and this has been my whole life,” he says. “Sometimes it also costs me a little more to understand things, but I always know what happens around me. So sometimes I played that role; not always, but when it was necessary.”
It is true that this personality is not just an action. Autodenominated “party rocker” at the University of Arizona, Gronk never hesitated to show his wild side in its beginnings in the NFL. After losing against the New York Giants in the Super Bowl XLVI of 2012, he was seen with his favorite musical group, the rightly called LMFAO, and on one occasion an interview after the match with ESPN Deportes with the joke: ” I am a party “.
But he has always understood how success in the field can make his way to other opportunities. As a child in Buffalo, New York, he saw the then Marshal of Campo de los Bills, Doug Flutie, in a cereal box and thought: “That could be me one day if I get to fame.”
When he arrived in New England as selected in the second round of the 2010 Draft, Gronkowski decided to save his NFL checks, which still claims not to have touched. Instead, he lived what he could win with his sponsorships, starting with an advance of $ 50,000 for his agent’s marketing. His frugality helped him: $ 1,500 per month of rent, ate at the team’s facilities and drank free in the Boston area, an advantage for the popular Patriots players.
Those first years taught him to play in the long term and consider factors as with whom he did business, how companies intended to work with him and how that could boost his personal brand.
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Since hung the ankle boots, he has only improved his game, to the point that, according to him, he ends up rejecting at least half of the opportunities that are presented to him. Forbes He estimates that his association with Fanduel exceeds one million dollars a year – his largest contract to date – and Fox has made his cheerful presence on television. The chain used it in the transmission of the 500 miles of Indianapolis in May and made it a full -time member of its program prior to the NFL party in August, replacing the retired Jimmy Johnson. “It is not necessary to be a great football fan to know who Gronk is,” says Bill Richards, executive producer of Fox NFL Sunday .
However, it could be said that the best lesson that Gronkowski learned during his stage as a player was the power of equity. In 2013, he signed with the Bodyarmor sports drink brand in an cash agreement and actions, despite having no idea what that meant. By the time Coca-Cola bought Bodyarmor for 5.6 billion dollars eight years later, Gronkowski had completely forgotten his participation, but still received a couple of millions of dollars as payment. He won another victory after an excommunicero of the Patriots presented him with a set of condominiums and parking lots, and has seen his Apple shares multiply since he made a purchase of $ 69,000 in 2014.
GRONK TAO
I don’t even want them to know me more than I am now. Where I am now cool.
I like to be partying from morning to night, and then I make sure to sleep. But from time to time, you have to repeat.
I love remembering things, studying and remembering them; I feel good. It’s like my medication.
“Instead of going to take a shake, go take a protein shake and feel good about yourself.”
“You laugh while you get to the bank.”
Since then, he has expanded his portfolio with participations in Recover 180, a sports beverage company launched by the Bodyarmor co -founder, Lance Collins; Anivive Lifesciences, a California startup that develops pet medications; and Ice Shaker, a business founded by his brother Chris that manufactures thermal bottles for protein milkshakes and appeared in Shark Tank . (Mark Cuban and Alex Rodríguez agreed to pay $ 150,000 for 15% of the company, and after the program, Gronk bought the participation of A-Rod for three times that amount because, he says, his brother is “implacable”). There is also Greenlane, a small salad chain and informal fast food wraps with three stores in Florida who believes that they will be their “home run”, so it invested more than one million dollars.
At this point in his career, he says, “now it’s home money, so let’s play the game.”
“I have much more than I ever imagined from the beginning, so now I can risk more and get the money from the FU so you can buy a yacht,” he says with another laugh. “I can lose half and keep being safe, but I will not lose the other half.”
This article was originally published by Forbes Us.
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