When Shohei Otahni recently signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, it was easily the biggest baseball contract in history and all sorts of interesting comparisons came up: his earnings compared to some other teams’ entire payrolls, his pay per minute, etc. What interested me the most was his per-game pay which is set to be $432,000 based on a 162-game season. This is particularly compelling for this coming year because due to an injury, he won’t be pitching for them. He can still bat and they’re planning to use him as a designated hitter, so he wouldn’t be playing any defensive time. Four at-bats per game is fairly standard in MLB so he would be making around $108,000 per at-bat.
The male and female winners of the London and Berlin Marathons make somewhere in the range of $45,000-50,000 for their first-place finish. The New York male and female winners earn $100,000. (Caveat–there can be various course record and time bonuses for them but for the sake of the math, we’ll go with the straight-up prize money.) Ohtani would only have to walk halfway from the dugout to the plate for the Berlin or London money, and just a few feet shy of the plate for the New York money.
Usain Bolt is the wealthiest track athlete on the planet, estimated to be worth $90 million. He burst onto the scene in 2008 so that’s 15 years to that sum. Ohtani will take just over one to reach that same level. In 2016, Bolt earned $33 million, or just less than half of what Ohtani will earn in a full year.
Most of the rest of the top ten track and field athletes for net worth are male and female sprinters and none of them even come close to Bolt. Eliud Kipchoge is not in that top ten and with the most successful marathon career of all time, has an estimated net worth of $3 million, or less than five percent of one year of Ohtani’s salary.
I don’t think most people believe that professional running is a gateway to riches. And, obviously Ohtani’s contract is an example in the extreme, though Bolt’s earnings are also an anomaly relative to his sport. Some running pros can earn a living (a handful have a handsome net worth) and if you’re not a pro but still have good wheels, there are local races with smaller prize purses and other benefits. I would never discourage anyone from running because there’s no money. The running should be fun (even if there’s pain in the training) and oddly, I’ve never heard many runners talk about the comparison between what pro runners earn versus the four major sports. Maybe it’s a pointless conversation—running just won’t draw the same crowds to the stadiums like the others.
And yet, it remains a sport that many of us love. So, enjoy the run, savor the pride of accomplishment, enjoy the camaraderie of the running world.
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