Ex-NFL tight end and Super Bowl winner Rob Gronkowski revealed that he walked into a forgotten $600,000 investment in Apple stock that he entirely forgotten about for nearly a decade. The former New England Patriots tight end made the initial investment of $69,000 in 2014.
Gronkowski was making his mark as one of the NFL’s premier tight ends at the time and came across advice from an unlikely financial advisor in a contractor working on his Massachusetts home. Gronk had just signed a six-year, $54 million extension with the Patriots but was still relatively unfamiliar with investing.
“I’d never been involved in stocks. I really didn’t know how stocks worked. So I was like, ‘Alright, let me do this,” Gronkowski shared in a recent interview with Fortune. I’m going to go big.'” Gronk put down $69,000 in Apple stock, forecasting his financial outlook for life after the NFL. Fast forward to today, and that initial investment has multiplied nearly ninefold, bringing its total value to over $600k.
Despite the significant sum involved, Gronkowski admitted he completely forgot about the stock. He focused on amassing football accolades, including Pro Bowl appearances and Super Bowl victories. As he grew to become an icon on the field, his Apple investment quietly grew in the background.
It wasn’t until recently that Gronkowski checked in on the investment and discovered his remarkable return. “To this date, I have over $600,000 of Apple stock,” he said, laughing about how clueless he was then. “Having no idea what I was doing but just listening to the man who built my house here in New England.”
When Gronkowski bought Apple stock in 2014, shares were trading at $24.58. Nearly a decade later, those same shares are worth $243.07.
Apple’s overall valuation also skyrocketed in that period. At the end of 2014, the company was worth $578.29 billion. Today, Apple is valued at $3.551 trillion, becoming the first company to cross the $1 trillion mark in 2018. The company saw a 972 percent increase in stock price after the original iPhone’s release in 2007.
