Shohei Ohtanis agent Nez Balelo has no regrets | College News

The business of sports activities usually is cloaked in secrecy. You can discover out the wage of your favourite participant, but how a lot money his crew makes and how a lot money he makes off the sphere are the stuff of estimates, not public discourse.

Not on Thursday, though. Is Shohei Ohtani actually making more than $100 million this 12 months in endorsements?

Nez Balelo, the agent for Ohtani, didn’t hesitate.

“Absolutely,” Balelo mentioned at Sportico’s Invest West convention at Intuit Dome.

Balelo isn’t, let’s consider, Scott Boras. He doesn’t embrace public talking. So we dropped by to hear what Balelo had to say after the first full season of Ohtani’s record-breaking $700-million contract with the Dodgers.

The document didn’t final long. Juan Soto signed for $765 million with the New York Mets final winter.

And, because Ohtani deferred $680 million and Soto deferred $0, and because a greenback right this moment is value more than a greenback 10 years from right this moment, the precise worth of Soto’s contract is $765 million and the precise worth of Ohtani’s contract is $460 million.

Regrets?

“Not at all,” Balelo mentioned. “We wouldn’t do anything different. He won a championship. He went to the right team. Why would we do anything different? No regrets. Nothing.”

Not even about the Angels, the crew with which Ohtani selected to play the first six seasons of his main league profession. The Angels never posted a profitable document with Ohtani, not to mention gained a championship.

They did, however, stand by their dedication to let Ohtani bloom as a two-way participant, even after his first Cactus League season was so tough they fielded questions about whether or not they would demote him to the minor leagues.

“If we had to do it all over again today, we would have done it exactly the same way,” Balelo mentioned. “We would have chosen the Angels back in the day. It was the right place, with the group and Mike (Scioscia) and the whole team over there. They gave him an opportunity. They stuck with him. He had a tough spring. It was the right home for him at the time.”

“The Dodgers are the right home for him now.”

It was with the Angels — and in specific in 2021, when Ohtani gained his first most precious participant award — that he blossomed into what Balelo known as a “global superstar.”

However, before the beginning of his remaining season with the Angels, Balelo and Ohtani determined there could be no talks about an extension.

“We knew we were going to exercise our rights to go into free agency,” Balelo mentioned.

The Angels opted to strive to win with Ohtani in 2023 somewhat than commerce him for a desperately needed infusion of younger expertise. They have been three video games out of a playoff spot at the tip of July and traded prospects for rental help, then completed 16 video games out of a playoff spot.

Balelo wouldn’t say precisely how many corporations Ohtani endorses but put the quantity in the “low 20s.”

“It’s not like I’m out there pounding the pavement and soliciting companies,” Balelo mentioned. “After 2021 and 2022, we could have really gone crazy. That’s not who he is. He doesn’t want that.”

He is in every single place in Japan, in commercials above road crossings and at the airport, on tv and in magazines. He endorses sneakers and skincare merchandise, airways and watches and so a lot more.

“We have to make sure we don’t overexpose him,” Balelo mentioned.

Say what?

“We could probably have 40 or 50 deals,” Balelo mentioned.

That $100 million in endorsement income enabled Ohtani to offer the Dodgers — and different free-agent finalists, including the Angels — the identical deal: $700 million, with $680 deferred. The Angels declined. On Thursday, Balelo condemned what he known as the “reckless reporting” of Ohtani’s alleged flight to Toronto to signal with the Blue Jays.

The Dodgers took the deal, promising to use the money they’d not be spending on Ohtani instantly to signal different gamers.

“They get it,” Balelo mentioned. “They have the vision.”

Within two weeks of signing Ohtani, they’d spent more than $450 million on pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow.

“He knew the marketing leg was doing extremely well,” Balelo mentioned. “He knew it was not about the money. It was more about getting with a team that would appreciate him and understand him and allow him to develop as a two-way player.”

With Ohtani coming off his second elbow reconstruction, Balelo mentioned he questioned whether or not groups would possibly recruit him only as a hitter. As it turned out, he mentioned, none made such an offer.

Balelo mentioned he might have pursued offers of as many as 15 years, and possibly even longer, but Ohtani rejected those overtures. When his contract with the Dodgers expires, he’ll be 39.

“He just didn’t want to have the end of his storybook career tail off,” Balelo mentioned, “and then in Year 13, 14 and 15: ‘Who is this guy? He can’t even run down to first.’”

That raises the likelihood that Balelo already has negotiated Ohtani’s final enjoying contract, even though Ohtani is 30.

Ohtani already has gained three MVP awards, all unanimously. He would have gained a fourth if not for Aaron Judge breaking the American League home run document in 2022. No one in addition to Barry Bonds has gained more than three.

So Balelo won’t be performed negotiating on Ohtani’s behalf after all. The Cooperstown advertising offers await but, luckily for the Dodgers, not any time soon.