The record of the highest paid athlete in the world has not lasted a week for Jon Rahm. The Basque golfer signed a millionaire agreement with the Saudi LIV Golf for 500 million dollars, but the contract announced this morning in the MLB, the American baseball league, has shattered all records. The Dodgers will pay $700 million for Japanese Shohei Ohtani, in the best contract of all time.
The 29-year-old Japanese genius announced this Saturday his signing for the Los Angeles Dodgers after months of enormous expectation and endless rumors. Jeff Passan, one of the journalists with the best sources in the Major Leagues, estimated the Dodgers' offer at 700 million dollars for 10 years for the ESPN network, monumental figures that would place him with the largest sports contract ever signed by total volume (not by annual salary).
The largest contract by total volume so far in the MLB was that of a former teammate of his from the Angels in 2019: Mike Trout with $426.5 million for 12 years. The magnitude of this enormous agreement breaks all standards in the MLB, since at the end of those 10 years Ohtani will be on the verge of the 745 million dollars that Alex Rodríguez accumulates after 22 seasons in the Major Leagues and adding his juicy personal businesses .
Ohtani and his 700 million dollars will exceed the 674 million that the Argentine star Lionel Messi received with Barcelona, according to calculations by the newspaper El Mundo.
In the NBA, the largest contract ever signed came this summer with the renewal of Jaylen Brown with the Boston Celtics for five years and $304 million.
For his part, the NFL player for the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes, signed a 10-year, $503 million contract in 2020 that marked a before and after in the NFL. In addition, Mahomes agreed last September to restructure the stretch from 2023 to 2026 for 210.6 million.
As he has done with the game, with his performance on the field since his arrival in the big tent, Ohtani has changed the business and the way in which a player is valued, breaking the maximum salary and contract thresholds in MLB history. and professional sports.
The Japanese is also one of the most beloved athletes in the United States. That devotion of his followers keeps him among the players with the most jerseys sold and among the most voted for the MLB All-Star Game. His commercial figure is one of the most followed not only in the Major Leagues, but in professional sports in the United States. His acceptance and following by the Japanese public and media have also made him a very popular figure internationally.
The only shadow in his imminent future is the state of his right elbow, already this year he had to have surgery to solve some ligament problems for which he also underwent surgery in 2018 (then a more complex procedure and more difficult recovery followed) . From the outset, and after this new operation, it is already known that in 2024 he will be able to hit, but he will not be able to resume pitching duties until 2025.
