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The MLB and sports world has been rocked after it was announced that Shohei Ohtani will sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a reported 10-year, $700 million contract, making it not only the most lucrative in the history American sports, but maybe even ever.
The deal is not yet official, as Ohtani has yet to pass his medical exam so there is still a possibility that the deal could fall through, as it did with Carlos Correa in 2022. However, if confirmed, it would break all records in terms of sports contracts.
Messi's mega contract was surpassed by Ohtani
The newspaper El Mundo in a report in 2021 revealed that Lionel Messi agreed a contract with Barcelona worth around $674 million in 2017 for four seasons, which was at that time the largest contract in the history of world sport.
Such amount is the total sum of different concepts such as salaries, image rights, bonuses and variables including loyalty, signing and variable awards for goals obtained during Messi's last seasons in Catalonia.
The contract paid the Argentine an average of $168.5 million per year and, according to reports, Barcelona will continue to pay Messi until at least 2025. Even when the Argentine left for PSG in 2021, the team still owed him wages.
Ohtani's potential contract, if made official, would surpass the one signed by Messi and would even be worth even more than the reported $700 million worth the contract, as it is mentioned that the deal has deferred salaries to avoid a larger burden to the Dodgers' payroll which is already one of the largest in the sport.
This means that the Dodgers would continue to pay Ohtani money even after his contract ends, including paying him with interest until the debt is paid off, so the Japanese player's contract could exceed the aforementioned $700 million in total value.