Contract of the century for the unicorn: the world’s most unknown superstar breaks all records

Have you ever heard of Shohei Ohtani? Not! Then don’t worry. The 29-year-old Japanese is the most unknown superstar in the world. His move from the Los Angeles Angels to the Los Angeles Dodgers is one for the sports history books. But how does that work?

Last week the baseball world went crazy. It was Friday. The MLB Network announced: Shohei Ohtani’s next employer is imminent. Where would it go? The rumors swirled around the world. The Toronto Blue Jays, the only Canadian team in the MLB, were said to have a very good chance of being able to sign Ohtani. What always happens happened: baseball fans around the world took notice. Flight plans were studied. Everything had meaning.

A Japanese player’s alleged restaurant reservation with the Blue Jays in Toronto further raised fans’ blood pressure. And then there’s this: A plane was making its way from Los Angeles to Toronto. No stopping now. American baseball journalists were also infected. Jon Morosi, a generally well-connected sportswriter, confirmed that Ohtani was on his way to Toronto. Deal done?

Toronto of all places? The Blue Jays? A team that hasn’t been known to guide its most prominent players across the border in recent years should secure the services of the “unicorn”? So the player who delivers performances that have not been seen in the last 100 years? Who would believe that?

700 million in baseball? How is this suppossed to work?

Not even the player himself! Because on Saturday evening Ohtani, the Most Valuable Player of 2023, announced his new franchise on his Instagram account. The Los Angeles Dodgers! He won’t have to leave the city, as he has played for local rivals the Angels for the last six years.

The Dodgers are spending $700 million on this commitment over the next ten years. The highest contract ever awarded in the four major professional sports – football, ice hockey, basketball and baseball – in the USA. Also higher than the amount that golf professional Jon Rahm received for his controversial move to the Saudi Arabian golf league LIV.

How is it possible that such a contract is possible in MLB, Major League Baseball? In baseball, a sport that, according to critics, is dying. Because it’s too long, too uninteresting, too lacking in action. A sport that still insists on its tradition and that has changed little about the game. Baseball is not a sport that attracts worldwide attention. Things look different in the USA, Central America, Japan and South Korea. But just ask in Europe. Nobody there, except a few nerds, is interested in this sport.

No salary cap, but guaranteed 81 home games

The American professional league consists of 30 teams and the regular season alone consists of 162 games. That means 81 home games for each team. Each MLB team can negotiate its own TV contracts. The Los Angeles Dodgers, Ohtani’s new team, signed a 25-year contract in 2013 that will pay them a total of $8.5 billion. In 2022, the Dodgers’ sales were 581 million dollars, roughly 540 million euros. For comparison: FC Bayern Munich had sales of 854.2 million euros in the last financial year.

To this end, the league is waiving a salary cap, as is common in the other top leagues in the USA – namely the NHL, NBA and NFL. Teams have to pay a tax, the so-called “luxury tax,” if they exceed a certain amount. But this has no sporting consequences. Any discussion about a possible upper limit is also nipped in the bud by the players’ union. Its chairman Tony Clark confirmed during the last negotiations on the new collective agreement, the “collective bargaining agreement”, that with him there would be no such limit. “We will never agree to a salary cap. Baseball is doing well.”

Contrary to any horror scenarios of baseball dying, the sport is actually developing quite favorably. Attendance in 2023 was 9.1% higher than in 2022. Although it fell slightly for the Dodgers, the team with the most spectators at just over 47,000 spectators per game. But why do more fans come?

Previous record shattered

Because the league was active. She adjusted the rules a bit. The game became faster overall. The average game in the MLB ended in 2:40 hours in 2023, 23 minutes faster than in 2022 and below the magic three-hour mark that the NFL does not reach. An average game there lasts a little over three hours. “America’s favorite pastime” America’s favorite pastime has become more attractive to people again.

Critics argue that if there is no salary cap in the league, there will be little parity, meaning that the richest clubs will automatically fight for the championship among themselves. The football approach with the eternal trap of diverging scissors. The fact that the title, the World Series, has not been defended since 2000 speaks against this. Teams from smaller markets like the Kansas City Royals also won the championship.

Despite all these factors, Ohtani’s contract is more than unusual for the sport of baseball. Mike Trout signed the highest-paying contract to date with the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani’s previous team, in 2019. The 12-year contract, which runs through 2030, pays Trout $426 million, more than $270 million less than Ohtani’s. But why are the Dodgers paying this extraordinary sum to Shohei Ohtani?

Ohtani is a player of the century

They pay the money because MLB hasn’t seen a player like Ohtani in 100 years. Since the legendary Babe Ruth, to be exact. Ohtani can be used both on offense and as a thrower. And equally good. His stats are among the league leaders among both hitters and pitchers. He won’t be able to prove that next season, the first of his new monster contract.

An elbow injury will then prevent him from being able to take the field as a pitcher. And yet his value to the Dodgers brand, to baseball itself, is hard to quantify. The comparisons to Michael Jordan or LeBron James are not exaggerated. The Ohtani jersey was the best-selling in the 2022 league.

There is no question as to whether the sum will be worth it for a player like Ohtani. Ratings in Japan were very good last season even when Ohtani was unable to play due to injury, as was the case in September. Advertising for Japanese companies and products was omnipresent among the Angels. Incidentally, TV contracts with broadcasters outside the USA are not negotiated by the teams, but by the league directly. They benefit equally from this deal.

Who was actually on the plane to Toronto?

A trick ensures that the Dodgers don’t have to pay $70 million a year for ten years. Large parts of the salary are postponed until after the end of the contract. The club now pays a lower salary, with talk of “only” $40 to $50 million a year. This means that the Dodgers remain able to act with other players, but still have to pay Ohtani a sum every year long after his career ends. A tidy sum. Such contracts in which salaries are deferred are nothing new. The most famous example can be found in New York.

Every year on July 1st, fans of American baseball in general and those of the New York Mets in particular celebrate “Bobby Bonilla Day”. Bonilla was a player for the New York Mets, but before the 2000 season they decided they no longer needed his services and released him. Since contracts in the MLB are guaranteed, they still owed him his salary for 2000, $5.9 million. The Mets and Bonilla agreed to defer salary with 8% interest. As of 2011, almost $1.2 million was transferred to Bonilla every year. The agreement is valid until 2035. Bonilla will then be 72 years old.

Incidentally, the Canadian businessman Robert Herjavec, known for his participation in the US series Shark Tank, the “Lion’s Den” spin-off from the USA, was on the plane that left Los Angeles for Toronto. He jokingly thanked the Blue Jays for his new contract on Instagram. The world had gone crazy and what emerged was the biggest contract in the world for the world’s most unknown superstar.