Mark Walter the owner of Los Angeles Dodgers, have just sold out the team

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Home World US Businesses Technology Markets Climate Opinion Employment and Careers Lives and Arts HTSI MENU SEARCH Home World US Businesses Technology Markets Climate Opinion Employment and Careers Lives and Arts HTSI Join in Sign In 2024: A year of democracy’s testing? Keep up with the White House contest by subscribing to the Financial Times. SAVE 40% AthleticInclude in myFT Los Angeles Dodgers ink record-breaking $700 million contract with Shohei Ohtani The Japan-born star will become one of the wealthiest athletes in the world after signing a ten-year agreement. On June 21, in Anaheim, California, during a game against his new team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani, then with the Los Angeles Angels, throws. © AP On x (opens in a new window), Shohei Ohtani inks a record-breaking $700 million baseball contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. On Facebook (opens in a new window), Shohei Ohtani signs a record-breaking $700 million baseball contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. On LinkedIn (opens in a new window), Shohei Ohtani signs a record-breaking $700 million baseball contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Save your current work. 0% Sara Germano in New York December 9, 2023, 68 Print this page. Get the Editor’s Digest for nothing. The FT’s editor, Roula Khalaf, chooses her best stories for this weekly newsletter. The Japanese baseball sensation Shohei Ohtani has agreed to a seven hundred million-dollar, ten-year contract worth of money with the Los Angeles Dodgers. This is reportedly the biggest individual sports contract in history. The contract surpasses previous records in football, baseball, and golf by a significant margin. It’s a reflection of the more extravagant spending by wealthy owners, like the Guggenheim-led Dodgers consortium, as live sports continue to be a popular industry for investment and television viewership. Ohtani’s contract dwarfs previous records in Major League Baseball, which is unique among US sports in not having a hard salary cap for individual players. Examples of previous records include the $90-million, nine-year contract that New York Yankees star Aaron Judge signed this season and the $427-million, twelve-year contract extension that Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout received in 2019. The arrangement surpasses previous records in international football, such as the $200 million per year that Cristiano Ronaldo reportedly agreed to pay to join Al Nassr FC in Saudi Arabia for two years. This week, John Rahm, the winner of the Masters, decided to play on the LIV Golf Tour in Saudi Arabia. The tour is said to be valued at over $300 million.

The 29-year-old Ohtani wrote a message on his Instagram account on Saturday that read, “To all Dodgers fans, I commit to always do what’s best for the team and always continue to give it my all to be the best version of myself.” In addition, he expressed gratitude to Los Angeles Angels supporters, for whom he has been a player for the previous six seasons. “He constructed his contract to represent a sincere commitment from both sides to long-term success,” stated Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo. Ohtani, a baseball player born in Oshu, Japan, is regarded as a once-in-a-century talent. The MLB Most Valuable Player award has been given to him twice. With 44 home runs in 2023, he led all batters in the American league while keeping his earned run average (ERA) low at 3.14, a pitching statistic that counts the average number of runs scored by opponents per nine innings pitched. Ohtani made history earlier this summer when he became the first player in Major League Baseball in sixty years to both hit two home runs and strike out ten opponents in a single game. “Every day, we witness things from Ohtani that we have never seen before,” Angels manager Phil Nevin stated at the time.

The Dodgers last won the World Series in 2020. Todd Boehly, the owner of Chelsea FC, has owned the team since 2012. Before relocating to Los Angeles in 1958, the franchise had its start in Brooklyn in 1883.