Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani just signed a 10-year, $1 billion contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That is the number that Messi and Ronaldo both have to admire.

Ohtani and his world record contract with the Dodgers

If you add up the salaries of every Major League Baseball (MLB) player at 17 clubs over the next four years, it still doesn’t equal the amount of money Shohei Ohtani was paid under his agreement with the Dodgers. This deal completely beat previous record contracts of football superstars such as Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.

For the past several months, the baseball world has been abuzz about Ohtani’s future after he became a free agent. The baseball superstar is so famous that in his home country, more than 50 Japanese media units came to Los Angeles to report on Ohtani’s final decision. Ultimately, the superstar chose to stay in Los Angeles, where he spent six seasons with the Angels, the Dodgers’ crosstown rival. So how can a 29-year-old baseball player whose father is an auto engineer and whose mother is a badminton player prepare to own assets of more than $1 billion?

Ohtani signs a record contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers

Los Angeles Dodgers is a famous baseball club in America. 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 has really attracted everyone’s attention. Ohtani’s class beyond the stature of an athlete helps him be compared to the most influential figures on the planet. Possessing a height of 1m93, 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 style of play on the field is also very special in the baseball world. The Japanese superstar is the athlete with the best combination of hitting and throwing techniques, 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 both a hitter and his ability to make plays. run in a weird place. Babe Ruth was both a pitcher and a man who could throw the most dangerous shots.

Baseball players with this style are often called “two-way players” because they are proficient in both hitting and pitching. However, such play in professional baseball was thought to have been extinct long ago, until Ohtani appeared. Wishing to try his hand at Major League Baseball more than a decade ago, Ohtani was rejected by the Dodgers because the team did not accept a Japanese player as both a hitter and a pitcher. Ohtani will only be able to choose one s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁. After delaying joining MLB to spend the early years of his playing career in Japan, Ohtani was quickly invited by the Angels with a contract in 2018. At that time, the Dodgers realized their mistake from the mistakes they made. last year.

This season, Ohtani’s 6th in MLB, he leads the American League with 44 homeruns. While playing the pitcher position, Ohtani posted 10 wins and became the first MLB player to have both double-digit wins and homeruns in two consecutive seasons. Ohtani won the American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in 2021 and 2023. The Japanese star is the first player in MLB history to be voted for this title more than once with a perfect vote. . At the Baseball World Cup in early 2023 held in Miami (USA), Ohtani and the Japanese team won the championship after a 3-2 victory over the host team. Ohtani also personally won the title of Best Player of the tournament.

Ohtani’s superb performance has created fierce competition in the 2024 season for the Japanese star’s signature. Although many people believe that 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 athlete 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in 1994 still brings great attraction when playing. Italy signed a record contract with representatives 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 world’s largest sports deal. Baseball players are among the highest-paid athletes in the world, but none have landed a contract like Ohtani.

Ronaldo and Messi also had to say goodbye to Ohtani

Mike Trout ($648 million), Mookie Betts ($554 million) and Aaron Judge ($547 million) have all signed huge contracts in recent years, but they still haven’t been able to surpass the football star. Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs) with 684 million USD, who is said to have the largest transfer deal 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. In At that time, superstar Ronaldo transferred 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 net the player as much money as Messi or Ronaldo per year, but the total value of the contract is a staggering number. However, according to the agreement, Ohtani will only receive the full amount of more than 1 billion USD in the final year of the contract, that is, after 10 years.