According to a source, Rob Gronkowski will not be announcing his return to the New England Patriots in a press conference he’ll be holding on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
That source is my brain. I am my own source on this one. It’s called common sense.
The recently-retired Gronkowski announced this week, via a PR agent, that he’ll be holding an invite-only event in New York City later this month to “unveil his next chapter.”
Invite-only? In New York City? Next chapter?
For the record, I’m not invited. Perhaps my invitation got lost in the mail. Or maybe I’m not in his intended target-market. Regardless, I can assure you that Gronkowski will not be announcing his return to football on Aug. 27.
No, not even the XFL, which is somewhat intriguing considering the XFL is Vince McMahon’s baby, and Gronkowski has been linked to McMahon’s other baby — the WWE — many times before.
I’ve been telling you for a while that I don’t believe pro wrestling is something that would work out for Gronkowski the way he’d probably like. But if McMahon was looking to land a superstar player in his reinvented XFL, making Gronkowski an offer he simply couldn’t refuse — and one that the Patriots certainly would never give him — wouldn’t be a terrible idea.
I can almost assure you that Gronkowski still wouldn’t accept that offer. But I guess, in McMahon’s world, anything is possible. He did once create a superstar character in the WWF named “The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase” whose go-to phrase was, “Everybody’s got a price!”
Still, I think that if Gronkowski ever decides to play football again, it will only be in the NFL, and it will only be for a Tom Brady-led New England Patriots team.
So what will Gronkowski be announcing on Aug. 27? And if it’s not football related, why should us sports fans — and more specifically, Patriots fans — even care?
At some point, any and all Gronkowski news will be covered by the Entertainment staff down the hall. He will one day no longer be “sports news.” But as long as it seems fathomable for a 30-year-old Gronkowski to return to a Patriots team that’s in need of receivers, the Hall of Fame tight end will still have our attention with his off-the-field endeavors.
Some have speculated that the use of the word “chapter” in the announcement of the event indicates he could be releasing a new book. Others have hinted towards an announcement that he’ll be participating in “Dancing with the Stars” or maybe even launching a Gronkowski family reality TV show.
Whatever it’s going to be, I’m not sure it will warrants an event in NYC. But that’s probably why it’s invite-only. If they made it open to the public, it would be like Super Bowl Media Night with the amount of media showing up. And most would probably leave New York disappointed. What wouldn’t make a reporter disappointed is if that reporter felt like he or she was in Gronkowski’s special club by getting an invitation.
Again, no invitation yet on my end. But it’s okay.
I’ll just wait for the press conference at Gillette Stadium in late November.
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