How MLB star Shohei Ohtani made millions in endorsements without even trying:
at the 2012 Koshien Tournament, the Japanese high school baseball event equivalent of March Madness. Later that year, he announced his intention to bypass Japanese baseball and start his professional career in the U.S.
Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels attends his farewell event with Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters head coach Hideki Kuriyama at Sapporo Dome on December 25, 2017 in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.“His desire to play in the MLB as early as possible never changed, and everybody including the fans and the club knows that,” Trans Insight’s Suzuki says. “He wanted to play there very, very badly.”
Part of the reason Ohtani is MLB’s highest off-the-field earner is that baseball players don’t make nearly as much as other sports stars do in endorsements—his competition for the top spot is not nearly as fierce as it would be in, say, the NBA, whose superstar LeBron James pulled in an astounding $65 million off the court over 12 months on. In fact, no MLB player has earned more than $9 million in a single year off the field in at least the last decade .
“If you want to be a marketable star, you have to realize that this is not something that just happens,” says Joe Favorito, a veteran marketing consultant and lecturer at Columbia University. “You are in global competition with some of the biggest names on the planet, not just in sports but in entertainment. And that’s a job.”