It sounds ridiculous to drop well over a billion on just two players over two offseasons, but the Dodgers are operating in a different kind of economy.
Shohei Ohtani has made a run at Juan Soto possible for the Dodgers
Just as significant as the Dodgers’ aggression here, though, is the fact that they can afford to be aggressive at all. This team just handed out over a billion dollars in contracts last winter and had the fifth-highest payroll in the league in 2024; even allowing for Ohtani’s record deferrals, that’s a whole lot of money, which you’d think wouldn’t allow for a second record-breaking contract just a year later. But according to at least one report, it seems like the Ohtani Effect is paying dividends for L.A. already.
It’s tough to quantify just how much of an economic impact Ohtani has. But we know just how wildly popular he is in Japan: More people watched the first two games of this year’s World Series in Japan (15.2 million on average) than in the United States (14.5 million). And a study conducted last year found that Ohtani had generated some $337 million USD in just the 2022 season alone. Which was before he won his second MVP award, and before he led one of the most recognizable sports brands in the world to its first full-season championship since 1988.
