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NFLPA's marketing advice to rookies: 'Be like Gronk'

REUTERS / Brian Snyder

You may think that the league and its players association could only handle one Rob Gronkowski - but the party boy tight end is actually one of their shining examples of how to be an NFL player.

While introducing a select set of rookies to what life in the NFL is like at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere last week, the players association pointed to the New England Patriots star as the ideal display of how to brand yourself as a pro football player.

Ahmad Nassar, the president of the NFLPA's licensing and marketing subsidiary NFL Players Inc., told the Boston Globe's Ben Volin that Gronkowski's natural ability to brand himself on top of his All-Pro play has made him one the league's most recognizable faces.

"Some people think he's just this extension of a frat boy, and that it's sort of accidental," said Nassar. "And that's wrong. It's not accidental, it's very purposeful. So the message there is, really good branding is where you don't even feel it.

"You think, 'Oh, that's just Gronk being Gronk.' Actually, that's his brand, but it's so good and so ingrained and so authentic, you don't even know it's a brand or think it."

Related - Watch: Gronk lets imagination run wild in bikini-filled music video

Nassar certainly isn't telling players to copy Gronkowski's fun-loving style, but rather to emulate his ability to combine his natural personality with his own brand. Odell Beckham Jr. and Dak Prescott were mentioned at the rookie premiere as other good examples of marketing, though Gronkowski remains the master of NFL player branding.

"When we say, 'Be like Gronk,' we mean plan out who you want to be and stay true to that, because brands and fans will sniff it out if you're not authentic," Nassar said. "If you're not authentic it's not going to resonate well, and people will think that you're just doing it to make a buck."

Despite missing eight regular-season games and the Patriots' entire Super Bowl run, Gronkowski finished ninth in player merchandising sales in 2016.

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