Shohei Ohtani has one of the strangest paychecks in professional sports. Thanks to the unprecedented structure of his 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Ohtani receives just $2 million per year in actual cash salary from the team.

Fortunately, he has another source of income. A very, very large source of income.

According to ESPN baseball insider Jeff Passan, Shohei Ohtani is now making upward of $100 million per year off the field.

"Personally, with all of the advertisements, sponsorships, and stuff like that, it's upward of $100 million," Passan said in a recent interview.

And Passan argues that the economic impact of Ohtani extends far beyond the money flowing into his personal bank account.

"The Los Angeles Dodgers are not the Los Angeles Dodgers—they are the Shohei Ohtani Shell Corporation."

According to Passan, the Dodgers understood something Ohtani's former team, the Los Angeles Angels, never fully exploited: Ohtani isn't merely a superstar baseball player. He is a standalone international business.

"They understood that Ohtani himself is a monolith. They saw the international possibilities in Japan. They saw the business possibilities."

Those possibilities include sponsorships, merchandise, tourists traveling from Japan to see him play, international media, advertising, and an entire commercial ecosystem revolving around one athlete.

Here's a clip of the interview:

Jeff Passan says Shohei Ohtani earns over $100 million a year off the field and helped the Dodgers become MLB's first $1 billion revenue franchise

"Personally, with all of the advertisements, sponsorships, and stuff like that, it's upward of $100 million."

"The Los Angeles… pic.twitter.com/GYoQIbXXjX

— Isaac Bassey (@0xBassey) August 5, 2026

Shohei Ohtani's rise as an advertising powerhouse has been almost as remarkable as his rise as a baseball player. He occupies a position that essentially no other baseball player can replicate. He is arguably the most recognizable player in Major League Baseball while simultaneously ranking among the most famous and admired public figures in Japan.

Companies have responded by throwing money at him. Ohtani's enormous and constantly evolving collection of endorsement partners has included:

• New Balance
• Grand Seiko
• Porsche
• Hugo Boss
• Japan Airlines
• KOSÉ
• Ito En
• Beats by Dre
• Fanatics
• Topps
• Salesforce
• Epic Games
• Kirin Holdings
• Kowa
• SECOM

His New Balance relationship has evolved into much more than a traditional shoe deal. The company created Ohtani's personal logo and has released signature footwear and apparel around his name and image. His other partnerships span an unusually broad collection of industries, including airlines, luxury fashion, cosmetics, beverages, technology, trading cards, and video games.

Ohtani also has something every advertiser wants: enormous reach without an especially polarizing public persona. In the United States, he's a once-in-a-century baseball phenomenon. In Japan, his fame extends far beyond sports.

And, actually, Passan's $100 million estimate might be conservative. Forbes pegs Ohtani's annual off-field earnings at an astonishing $125 million. That means his endorsement income is more than 60 times the $2 million in cash salary he currently receives from the Dodgers.

Historically, that isn't how baseball worked. Even MLB's biggest superstars generally made the overwhelming majority of their fortunes from salary. Baseball players simply didn't command the same global sponsorship money available to stars in basketball, soccer, golf, or tennis.

In December 2023, Ohtani signed what was then the largest contract in professional sports history: 10 years, $700 million.

The headline number was extraordinary. The payment schedule was even crazier.

Ohtani agreed to defer $680 million of the $700 million until after the 10 playing seasons of the contract are completed. From 2024 through 2033, the Dodgers pay him just $2 million per year. That's only $20 million total over an entire decade.

Then the really big checks begin.

From 2034 through 2043, the Dodgers will pay Ohtani $68 million per year. It's something of a supercharged version of Bobby Bonilla's famous deferred contract, except the numbers are exponentially larger.

Because Ohtani receives no interest on the deferred money, the $700 million headline figure is worth substantially less in today's dollars. Major League Baseball calculated the contract's value for competitive-balance-tax purposes at roughly $46 million per season, putting the present value of the full deal at around $460 million when it was signed.

Ohtani proposed the unusual structure himself. The idea was simple: defer nearly all of his salary so the Dodgers would retain greater financial flexibility to surround him with elite players.

It also helps that Ohtani doesn't exactly need his Dodgers paycheck to cover his monthly expenses. When companies are paying you more than $100 million a year, a $2 million baseball salary starts to look like pocket change.

What makes Ohtani's situation truly extraordinary is that the Dodgers aren't merely paying him to play baseball. They essentially acquired an international business.

Passan contrasted the Dodgers with Ohtani's former team, the Angels:

"Good for them. They saw what the Angels never did."

The Dodgers recognized that the opportunity surrounding Ohtani extended far beyond ticket sales and baseball performance. Japan is one of the world's largest economies. Baseball is enormously popular there. And Ohtani is perhaps the country's most recognizable athlete.

Almost immediately after he signed with the Dodgers, Japanese companies began lining up to associate themselves with the franchise. New Japanese sponsors appeared throughout Dodger Stadium. Advertisements targeting Japanese consumers became ubiquitous. Japanese television coverage exploded. Travel companies marketed Dodgers trips built around the opportunity to see Ohtani play.

According to SponsorUnited, Ohtani was responsible for roughly $70 million in incremental sponsorship revenue for the Dodgers during his first season alone.

Consider what that means. Ohtani was contractually earning $70 million for his 2024 season, though $68 million was deferred. Meanwhile, his mere presence reportedly produced roughly $70 million in new sponsorship revenue for the Dodgers.

In other words, before accounting for tickets, merchandise, television audiences, playoff games, or anything else, the new sponsorship money alone was already approaching the annual value of his baseball contract.

Passan specifically highlighted another part of the Ohtani economy that is difficult to quantify: tourism. Japanese fans don't merely watch Dodgers games on television. They fly to Los Angeles.

Travel agencies sell baseball packages. Tourists visit Dodger Stadium. They buy tickets, jerseys, and souvenirs. They spend money at hotels, restaurants, and local attractions. At Dodger Stadium, Ohtani-related merchandise is everywhere, as are advertisements from Japanese companies.

The Dodgers have effectively turned their stadium into one of the most visible American marketing platforms for Japanese businesses. Ohtani's jersey has consistently ranked among baseball's strongest sellers, while collectibles and trading cards connected to him generate enormous demand.

Unlike a traditional superstar whose business value is concentrated mainly in the city where he plays, Ohtani effectively gives the Dodgers two home markets: Los Angeles and Japan.

Then came perhaps the most astonishing number of all.

According to Passan, the Dodgers became the first Major League Baseball franchise to generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Obviously, Shohei Ohtani did not personally generate that entire billion dollars. The Dodgers were already one of baseball's richest and most commercially successful franchises before he arrived. They had enormous attendance, premium seating revenue, a lucrative local television contract, merchandise sales, postseason income, and one of the most valuable brands in American sports.

But Ohtani poured gasoline on an already enormous fire.

The franchise suddenly had access to Japanese sponsorship opportunities on an unprecedented scale. International interest soared. Merchandise exploded. Tourism increased. Television audiences expanded.

The arrangement works pretty well for Ohtani, too.

We recently increased our estimate of Shohei Ohtani's net worth to $250 million. Remarkably, the $700 million Dodgers contract isn't yet the primary source of that fortune.

Ohtani has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from endorsements and other off-field ventures, including enormous income generated during the years following his move to the Dodgers. He has also already earned portions of the deferred compensation that will eventually be paid to him from 2034 through 2043.

If his endorsement income remains anywhere near its current level, Ohtani could make another several hundred million dollars off the field before his Dodgers playing contract even expires. Then the $68 million annual deferred checks start arriving.

Ohtani's contract is usually discussed from the player's perspective. He secured $700 million guaranteed, agreed to defer $680 million, and will eventually receive $68 million checks every year until 2043.

But the arrangement may ultimately prove just as extraordinary for the Dodgers.

They acquired the most unique player in modern baseball history. They immediately won championships. They dramatically expanded their business in Japan, attracted tens of millions of dollars in new sponsorship revenue, and became the first MLB franchise to generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

And while all of that is happening, they are writing Shohei Ohtani a check for just $2 million a year.

Ohtani doesn't mind. He's making more than $100 million a year everywhere else.

As Jeff Passan put it:

"The Los Angeles Dodgers are not the Los Angeles Dodgers—they are the Shohei Ohtani Shell Corporation."

And at the moment, business is very, very good.