Baseball player Shohei Ohtani signed a record contract in the history of world sports

Japanese baseball player Shohei Ohtani signed a record contract in the history of world sports. A ten-year agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers of the Major League Baseball (MLB) will bring the pitcher $700 million. However, if we evaluate the Japanese contract based on the average salary per year, it is still not the largest in history. For example, Lionel Messi’s last contract with Barcelona, ​​valid from 2017 to 2021, brought in more than $100 million a year. And Cristiano Ronaldo’s income in the Saudi Al-Nasr can reach $200 million per season.

One of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball, Shohei Ohtani signed the largest contract in the history of world sports. The Japanese on the social network X reported that he changed one Los Angeles club, the Angels, to another, the Dodgers (their stadiums are less than 50 km apart).

Under the ten-year contract, Ohtani will earn $700 million, an average of $70 million per year.

It is noteworthy that the Dodgers agreed to such terms, despite the fact that Ohtani is injured and cannot play at full strength. In the fall, he underwent surgery on the elbow joint of his “working” hand, and he will return to throwing the ball – which is his main job – no earlier than 2025. True, he will be able to work with a bat in 2024.

Rumors that Ohtani, who is now a free agent, was being offered a huge contract have been circulating for months. The athlete himself and his representatives did not comment on anything at all, which only inflamed passions. But most experts agreed that the agreement would not be radically different from the previous MLB record deal – in 2019 Mike Trout signed with the Los Angeles Angels a 12-year agreement worth $426.5 million ($35.5 million average per year). Note that previously the largest contract among players in all American professional leagues signed NFL (National Football League, American football) quarterback Patrick Mahomes. It was believed that he had a ten-year contract worth $503 million with the Kansas City Chiefs, but, according to updated data, we are talking about an agreement for $450 million. Ohtani’s contract, based on the average annual income of a baseball player, turned out to be almost twice as large as Trout’s agreement , and blocked Mahomes’ achievement with a margin.

It is noteworthy that, for example, the Baltimore Orioles team spends almost as much on all its players per season as Ohtani will receive—$77 million.

In the United States, the news of Ohtani’s contract caused serious excitement, and in Japan, where the baseball player has been the most popular athlete for several years, it became almost the main event. The Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan’s five national newspapers, even published a special issue dedicated to Otani’s transition. And in the courtyard of Ohtani’s school, people lined up to take pictures at the monument, which featured the baseball player’s handprint.

Meanwhile, if we evaluate the size of Ohtani’s contract not by its full value for the entire period of validity, but by average annual earnings, it turns out that it is still not the largest. The record contract is still that of Lionel Messi from 2017 to 2021. An audit of the Catalan club’s finances revealed that during this time Messi received €500 million ($538 million), or more than $134 million per year. According to unconfirmed official data, another great football player of our time, Cristiano Ronaldo, earns $200 million a year in the Saudi Arabian An-Nasr. True, it is unclear how much of this money relates to wages and what part to the share of other income.

Alexander Petrov