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       Ohtani’s Contract Goes Beyond Dollars and Sense

       The Los Angeles Dodgers are betting $700 million that Shohei Ohtani can deliver championships and help increase revenue. But the economics of sports can be fickle.

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       Credit...Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press

       By Ken Belson

       Published Dec. 10, 2023Updated Dec. 11, 2023

       Japanese baseball players are taught to keep a low profile and let their performances do the talking. Yet for more than a decade, Shohei Ohtani has been willing to make waves.

       In high school, he wanted to become the first Japanese player to go straight to the Major Leagues. When he debuted as a professional in Japan instead, he insisted on playing the field and pitching, something rarely done. He continued the feat after joining the Los Angeles Angels six seasons ago, winning two Most Valuable Players awards as well as the nicknames Shotime and Japan’s Babe Ruth.

       Now, Ohtani, 29, has broken another barrier, signing a record 10-year, $700 million contract to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The deal, announced Saturday, was as eye-popping as his tape measure home runs and blazing fastball: more than $275 million above what his Angels teammate Mike Trout received in 2019; and $10 million more per year than Damian Lillard of the N.B.A.’s Milwaukee Bucks, who had the highest annual salary in American pro sports. It also eclipses that $50 million to $60 million that the Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi is earning each year to play for Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami.

       Ohtani’s belt-busting contract highlights the often confounding economics of baseball and professional sports more broadly, where networks and companies spend hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars to link their businesses to players and teams whose success can be ephemeral.

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       Ken Belson is a Times reporter covering sports, power and money at the N.F.L. and other professional sports leagues. More about Ken Belson

       A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 11, 2023, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Dodgers Are Betting Big On Japanese Player Ohtani . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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