Shohei Ohtani will be making $70 million per year, which is just about double the $35.2 million that the entire Orioles’ 26-man roster is projected to make next season.
It is difficult to contextualize the riches that await Ohtani, the unicorn of a superstar who has thrived as a two-way player in ways unseen since Babe Ruth.
The most coveted free agent in baseball history will be paid like it, reaching a deal with the Dodgers that has blown away even the most optimistic projections: 10 years and $700 million.
In sports history, the $70 million per year appears to slot in as the fifth-most average annual value ever.
Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo are making a reported roughly $214 million annually in the Saudi Pro League, while Lionel Messi made about $168.5 million per season with Barcelona.
Canelo Alvarez’s deal with DAZN earned the boxer a reported $73 million per year.
Then comes Ohtani, whose annual income through the pact will earn him more than any basketball or football player.
The NBA’s highest AAV belongs to the Bucks’ Damian Lillard at $60.9 million.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, at $55 million, is the best-paid player in NFL history on a yearly basis.
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NFL contracts, of course, are rarely fully guaranteed.
Ohtani will see every bit of his contract, although there will be “unprecedented” deferrals, The Post has reported, that will help the Dodgers’ cash flow and luxury-tax total, theoretically allowing the team to keep adding to the roster beyond Ohtani.
The total outlay for Ohtani — $700 million — is the new standard by which gargantuan sports contracts are measured.
That amount is believed to be the largest in sports history, besting the $674 million Messi secured with Barcelona.
Through one deal, Ohtani will pocket about $220 million more than LeBron James has earned (about $479 million) through 21 seasons in the NBA.
The largest NFL contract in history belongs to the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, who signed a 10-year, $450 million megadeal that only — yep, only — includes a reported $210.6 million guaranteed.
Ohtani’s contract is one of a kind for a reason.
There is not another baseball player like him on the field or off the field, and the Dodgers are gambling that both his excellence and his marketability — all 81 regular-season games at Dodger Stadium will be packed, and Japan and the world will be watching and buying from afar — makes him more than merely a baseball player.
“This is a unique, historic contract,” Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo, said in a statement, “for a unique, historic player.”
