Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani has just signed a 10-year, $1 billion contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That’s a figure that would make both Messi and Ronaldo gasp.
Ohtani and the world record contract with the Dodgers
If you added up the salaries of every MLB player at 17 clubs over the next four years, it still wouldn’t equal the amount Shohei Ohtani will be paid under his Dodgers deal, which completely beats previous record-breaking contracts for soccer superstars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
For months, the baseball world has been abuzz about Ohtani’s future after he became a free agent. The superstar is so popular that back home, more than 50 Japanese media outlets traveled to Los Angeles to cover Ohtani’s final decision. In the end, the superstar chose to stay in Los Angeles, where he spent six seasons with the Dodgers’ crosstown rivals, the Angels. So how did a 29-year-old baseball player whose father was an auto engineer and whose mother was a badminton player, end up with a fortune of more than $1 billion?
Ohtani signs record contract with Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers is a famous baseball club in the US. Todd Boehly, the current owner of Chelsea, is the main executive of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The event of Ohtani signing a world-record sports contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers really attracted the attention of everyone. His class beyond the stature of a sports athlete helped Ohtani be compared to the most influential figures on the planet. Standing at 1m93 tall, the Japanese athlete is one of the most elite players with an impressive appearance and is often compared to a body that “only appears in comics”.
In fact, Ohtani’s on-field style is also unique in baseball. The Japanese superstar is the best combination of hitting and pitching, even better than the legendary Babe Ruth. When Babe Ruth dominated baseball more than a century ago, the world flocked to see the legend’s incredible skills as a hitter and a freakish home run hitter. Babe Ruth was both a pitcher and a hitter.
Baseball players with this style are often called “two-way players” because they are proficient at both hitting and pitching. However, this style of play in professional baseball was thought to be extinct for a long time, until Ohtani came along. He wanted to try his hand at Major League Baseball more than a decade ago, but was rejected by the Dodgers because the team did not accept Japanese players as both hitters and pitchers. Ohtani would only be allowed to pick one skill. After delaying his MLB move to spend the early years of his career playing in Japan, Ohtani was quickly signed by the Angels in 2018. By then, the Dodgers had realized their mistake all those years ago.
This season, Ohtani’s sixth in MLB, he led the American League with 44 homeruns. As a pitcher, Ohtani won 10 games and became the first MLB player to have both double-digit wins and homeruns in two consecutive seasons. Ohtani won the American League MVP award in 2021 and 2023. The Japanese star is the first player in MLB history to be voted for the award more than once with an absolute majority. At the 2023 World Cup held in Miami (USA), Ohtani helped the Japanese team win the championship after a 3-2 victory over the host country. Ohtani also won the Most Valuable Player award.
Ohtani’s stellar performance has created a fierce competition for the Japanese star’s signature in the 2024 season. Although many believe Ohtani will not be able to play for the Dodgers at the beginning of next season as he needs time to recover from elbow surgery in September, the 1994-born athlete still brings great attraction when agreeing to sign a record contract with the representative of the city of Los Angeles.
Messi and Ronaldo are only close to Ohtani
It’s hard to imagine that golf star Jon Rahm’s $850 million deal with CEO Greg Norman’s LIV Golf isn’t the biggest sports deal in the world. Baseball players are among the highest-paid athletes in the world, but none have ever landed a deal like Ohtani’s.
Ronaldo and Messi also had to admit defeat to Ohtani
Mike Trout ($648 million), Mookie Betts ($554 million) and Aaron Judge ($547 million) have all signed huge deals in recent years, but they still can’t surpass Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes’ $684 million contract, which was considered the biggest transfer in North American sports history before Ohtani joined the Dodgers.
Football superstar Lionel Messi was once said to have signed the most lucrative contract for a football player with a 4-year contract worth nearly 1 billion USD with his former team Barcelona from 2017 to the end of 2021. Meanwhile, superstar Ronaldo moved from MU to Al Nassr of the Saudi Pro League with a contract worth 815 million USD, a huge amount of money for a 38-year-old player.
Ohtani’s deal with the Dodgers may not pay him as much as Messi or Ronaldo each year, but the total value of the contract is staggering. However, according to the agreement, Ohtani will only receive the full $1 billion-plus in the final year of the contract, which is 10 years from now.