Surpassing Messi, Ronaldo, James... This Japanese athlete created the largest contract in sports history
Surpassing Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, James... People were a little caught off guard. The largest contract in sports history was suddenly born, and this contract belongs to a Japanese athlete.
29-year-old Japanese baseball player Shohei Ohtani announced on the 9th that he will join the Los Angeles Dodgers of the Major League Baseball in the new season. His agency later said in a statement that the new contract lasts for 10 years and has a salary of US$700 million. This number set a new record in the history of baseball and also created the history of professional sports. The previous record was in 2020, when the NFL team Kansas City Chiefs completed a contract extension with quarterback Mahomes. The two parties renewed the contract for 10 years and the contract was worth US$503 million.
"This is a unique, historic contract for a unique, historic player," Ohtani's agent, Nez Valero, said. "He is excited to begin this partnership. He structured his contract to reflect a genuine commitment from both parties to long-term success."
Shohei Ohtani was born in 1994. He is a baseball player born in Mizusawa City, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from Hanamaki Higashi High School in the same prefecture and currently plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers of the Major League Baseball. The fielding position is pitcher and outfielder. He started his professional baseball career with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters of the Nippon Professional Baseball Pacific League in 2013 and played for the Los Angeles Angels from 2018 to 2023.
Ohtani Shohei has set a new record in the entire sports history, and there is no suspense - many media, including ESPN, have already predicted that no matter where Ohtani ends up, he will create a new sports business history. Not only because he is good at both shooting and shooting, which can improve the team's record, but also because of his huge commercial value, he can bring a lot of income to the team. Why does Otani Shohei come out on top?
The 29-year-old Shohei Ohtani entered MLB in 2018. According to the salary arbitration regulations of the Major League Baseball, rookies can only get a minimum salary contract in the first three years. Ohtani was eager to go to the United States and decided to leave NPB and join MLB directly. His wages in the first three years were only US$545,000, US$650,000, and US$700,000 respectively. , and a signing fee of $2.3 million.
The Los Angeles Angels paid his parent team, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, an entry fee of US$20 million, which was equivalent to the transfer fee.
Although he was not favored by others at first and performed poorly in the trial, in his first season, Shohei Ohtani was elected as the Rookie of the Year. After the three-year rookie contract, Ohtani Shohei renewed his contract with the Angels for 2 years and $8.5 million. In 2021, Ohtani also won the MLB Most Valuable Player Award, Chairman's Historical Achievement Award and Silver Slugger Award. Ohtani is the second Japanese player after Suzuki Ichiro to win the MVP and Chairman's Historical Achievement Award. This achievement catapulted him into a top role in the world of professional baseball. It only took Shohei Ohtani three short years to go from a minimum-salary player to the American League MVP.
"Extraordinary talent" is no longer enough to describe Ohtani Shohei. He is a rare player in modern professional baseball who is good at both pitching and hitting. In addition to being able to pitch at an astonishing ball speed of up to 165km/h, he also has excellent long-hitting ability.
What is the concept of "two swords flow"? It is equivalent to an American football player. Whether it is the offensive or defensive team, he can be on the field in every quarter, and both offense and defense are among the best in the world. Of course, such a player has not yet emerged.
It is somewhat similar to James, who can play multiple positions in the NBA. However, James only gets one salary, while Ohtani Shohei can get two, and both his hitting and pitching abilities count.
On July 13, 2021, he became the first player to start in the major leagues as a pitcher and a designated hitter. This set a Guinness World Record. Since then, he has been selected into the MLB All-Star lineup as a designated hitter and a pitcher at the same time.
The 2023 season, starting with the World Baseball Classic, will see Shohei Ohtani show off his talents with his "two swords style". In the WBC in March, he led the Japanese Samurai team to defeat the defending champion United States 3:2, won the tournament championship, and won the MVP, best pitcher and best designated hitter awards.
In June, he hit 15 home runs in MLB, setting a single-month record for the team and a Japanese player. In July, he hit 9 home runs and became the American League Fielder's Player of the Month for two consecutive months.
Due to a torn ligament in his right elbow and surgery, Shohei Ohtani missed nearly a month and did not appear again since September 4. However, he still hit 44 home runs and became the first American League player to win the season's "Home Run Award". A Japanese golfer with the honor of "Playing King".
In addition, he ranks fourth in the American League in win shares as a starting pitcher and has a good record of 10 wins and 5 losses in 23 games. He is definitely an excellent pitcher.
Market conditions determine a player's worth. Take New York Yankees star Aaron Judge as a reference. After Judge hit an American League record-breaking 62 home runs last season, the Yankees offered him a nine-year, $360 million contract. . Shohei Otani can also receive the same salary, which is estimated to be around US$350 million. In addition, the new team will also have to pay Ohtani's pitching salary. Take New York Yankees ace pitcher Garrett Cole as a reference. His contract is 9 years and 324 million US dollars. Therefore, the total ceiling of Shohei Ohtani's next contract can be as high as $680 million. Taking into account his elbow injury this year, even if the pitcher's salary is discounted, MLB contracts will be all over the world in 10 years, so Ohtani Shohei's sky-high contract has long been traced.
It's also important that any team that's about to sign him can easily make that money back.
Broadcasting rights remain the main source of income for the four major sports leagues in the United States now and in the future. The greatest value of Shohei Otani is that he is backed by more than 20 million Japanese baseball fans. While becoming the traffic controller, he has created huge TV broadcast and streaming media broadcast revenue for his team and the league.
According to the short news website Axios, Japan's national television station NHK signed a broadcast agreement with the Angels very early and has fixed multi-camera broadcasts at the stadium. In the 2022 season, 22 Japanese brands bought advertising space at the Los Angeles Angels' home court. During his six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani Shohei directly brought broadcast contracts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to the team.
In addition, according to calculations by Katsuhiro Miyamoto, an honorary professor at Kansai University in Japan, Shohei Ohtani will bring approximately US$45 million in ticket revenue to the Angels in the 2022 season, in addition to peripheral revenue reaching US$7.26 million.
In 2023, Shohei Ohtani's jersey sales ranked first in the MLB. This does not include the large number of Japanese tourists who contribute to local GDP. In the past few years, thousands of Japanese baseball fans have traveled to the United States to watch games in order to witness Ohtani Shohei's style, just like fans of Suzuki Ichiro in previous years, adding to Seattle's economy.
Katsuhiro Miyamoto said that Shohei Ohtani will create a total of 50.4 billion yen in 2023, which is equivalent to approximately US$340 million in economic benefits. If he joins a traditional giant team like the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers next year, the economic benefits created will still be high. An increase of about $95 million. Therefore, it makes sense that more than a dozen teams, including the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, and Toronto Blue Jays, are trying to grab Shohei Ohtani.
Shohei Otani not only has a large number of fans, but also successfully breaks out of the industry with his good looks and perfect image. On November 22, Japan's "Good Couple Day", a matchmaking agency with 750,000 members announced the results of the selection. Shohei Ohtani was voted the "athlete most wanted to marry" by a high vote, followed by volleyball players Ishikawa Yuki and Darvish, another professional baseball star. Ohtani has become Japan's "national idol". He once donated 60,000 gloves to 20,000 primary schools in Japan, and his charity has captured the hearts of many people.
In March this year, Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology announced the results of the textbook inspection in the spring of 2024. The case of Shohei Otani will appear in the textbooks of mathematics and ethics for fifth grade elementary school students.
Many media believe that Shohei Otani has no rivals in Asia. After figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu retired, although Son Heung-min became very famous in world football, his sports performance and commercial value were much inferior to the former. The huge Chinese market should have the soil to breed superstars with higher value. Unfortunately, in the past 10 years, not a single influential Chinese male player has emerged in the world of professional sports.
