I'm not sure why Ohtani's salary is that surprising. It looks to me that professional athletes in major sports should be getting paid even more than what they currently are, generally speaking.
For instance, Steph Curry is the highest paid player in the NBA this year, at $51M. The Golden State Warriors franchise has increased in value over the years to almost $8 billion, and its annual revenue was reported to be around $765M last year. Their salary cap allocation for this year is around $226M. So after paying the players, including Curry's $51M, GSW's revenue is probably about $500M. Any guesses as to where the majority of that revenue is going?
And just look at the Oilers. Katz bought the team for around $170M in 2008. The valuation of the Oilers now is reported to be around $1.6B. That's a $1.4B increase in 15 years. That's almost a 10x increase. The salary cap when Katz bought the team in 2008 was about $56M. It's going to $87M next year. I took a quick look and couldn't find the Oilers' revenue, but I did see a recent report that said the lowest revenue in the NHL was about $400M. Say the Oilers have the lowest revenue in the league (they don't), after paying salaries, they're still bringing in over $300M. Again, where is the majority of that going?
The Dogers are valued at over $5B and generated over $600M in revenue. Their expected payroll looks to be around $220M next year, with Ohtani's $70M a year, which leaves them with revenue of over $300M. Where is the majority of that money going?
I'm just going to say it. I would much rather see the athletes getting more money than the owners continuing to make money hand over fist for doing essentially nothing. To make a larger point, I think professional sports provides a good representation of how capital increasingly vastly outearns labour in our society.
I get revenue isn't profit, that this is back-of-the-napkin math, etc. But the point stands that Ohtani should probably be making even more money.
nypost.com
