The discussion of how much money athletes should be paid is a topic that is consistently debated. Every sport has their superstars and they make good money, but most sport’s teams only have a certain amount that they can spend on their players.
The MLB is different: teams can spend however much they want on their players, which leads to teams in bigger markets to be able to sign high-paying contracts with their players.
Senior Owen Neiber had something to say about that:
“Yes, so it’s more competitive for the teams that don’t have as much to spend,” Neiber said.
For example, the NFL in 2024 has a 255 million dollar salary cap pre-team, which limits them to how much they can spend on players.
In 2023, MLB players on average had a salary of 4.22 million, but that doesn’t put into perspective how much some of the other players are making.
For example, Shohei Ohtani, the two way super star, signed a record-breaking contract worth 700 million dollars over ten years. Ohtani decided to defer 80 million of it until 2034, so he will be making two million a year until then and be payed $68 million annually until 2044.
“I don’t think they should be allowed to not pay him [Ohtani] till later and they should have to pay him now,” Neiber said.
Ohtani’s contract is gigantic for the time, but he is also considered a generational talent.
Del Val’s head baseball coach, Marty White, understands the complexity of Ohtani’s contract.
“There’s no one like him so he’s gotta be more valuable than other people, and he’s taking up one roster position to do what he does,” White said.
The Dodgers also lead the league in the most deferred contracts. They have over 1 billion dollars in contracts that are to be payed out in the future to seven different players.
The New York Yankees are also familiar with spending big on their players. They have their two star players, Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole, under big contracts.
Outfielder, Judge, signed a nine year, 360 million dollar contract in 2023; starting pitcher, Gerrit Cole, signed a nine year, 324 million dollar contract in 2020.
On top of this, the Yankees recently signed star pitcher, Max Fried, to an eight year, 218 million dollar contract. This was following the loss of Juan Soto, who they acquired last year in a trade with the Padres.
Soto signed a contract with the Mets that’s worth 765 million dollars which will span over 15 years. With that contract, Soto is now the most paid athlete of all time.
The Yankees and the Dodgers were both at the top of the list with attendance over the course of the year. Attendance of the fans also plays into how much money a team makes and has to spend. The higher the demand for tickets, the more the team can raise the price, and in return, bring in more money. This also plays into how well a team plays. If a team is doing well, there will be a higher demand for the tickets, forcing prices to go up.
As of now, baseball players are the highest paid athletes in the United States, and it’s looking like that won’t change for a long time.
