The year 2024 has been an exceptional one for American sports, as not only have leagues and teams generated great profits, but athletes, individually, have multiplied their earnings thanks to contracts and earnings off the field through their commercial arrangements.
When basketball player Caitlin Clark won TIME’s Athlete of the Year, many thought the title should have gone to Japanese baseball player Shohei Ohtani, but now it seems the two mega athletes have found common ground thanks to their earnings, according to essentiallysports.com.
Caitlin Clark shines in first workout with new Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White
Sports Business Journal (SBJ) published its list of the most influential people in the sports business and at the top are Clark and Ohtani, who SBJ describes as “newcomers”.
Others include Elliott Hill, Michele Kang, Pat McAfee, Egon Durban, Greg Mondre and Edward Rogers. SBJ makes it clear that no name is at the top and the list is not ranked.
Ohtani and Clark’s salaries are diametrically opposed
Although Ohtani’s $700 million contract with the Dodgers was just surpassed by Juan Soto’s $765 million deal with the Mets, the Japanese star remains one of the highest-earning athletes in sports.
His net worth currently stands at $85.3 million, according to Forbes.
While Clark’s salary in the WNBA is $76,535 for 2024, as part of a four-year, $338,056 contract.
Shohei Ohtani: Raising the bar for american Baseball with Japanese culture
However, it is their sponsors and other deals that have helped propel their names onto this list.
Indiana Fever Gaurd, the WNBA team Clark plays for, currently sponsors brands such as Nike, Goldman Sachs, Wilson, Gatorade, State Farm, Gainbridge, and more.
Ohtani and Clark steal the spotlight in professional sports
However, despite all the attention she attracted to the WNBA this year, many thought that the TIME honor should have gone to the World Series-winning Dodgers baseball player.
After all, not everyone can sign a record-breaking contract never seen before in all sports, in addition to winning the MLB MVP, and then lead their team to the World Series.
In addition, Ohtani made history by inaugurating the 50/50 club in MLB (50 home runs and 50 stolen bases).
Shohei Ohtani is clearly in a league of his own and he wasn’t even pitching this year. However, it could be similarly argued that no one has had a better rookie season than the WNBA Rookie of the Year, nor has anyone singularly affected the sport quite like No. 22 has.
Since Ohtani burst onto the scene, he has been hyped and lived up to it spectacularly. An outstanding player in Japan in 2017, his arrival as a two-way player was sure to mark a shift in the way baseball was played in the United States, and so it proved.
But it’s been like this for more than eight years. In that almost decade, no one gets tired of talking about the Japanese marvel, while Caitlin Clark is slightly different, newer and her fame is not even half a decade old.
Before that, she was a collegiate sensation with Iowa and has just finished her first season as a professional athlete.
“I don’t know what athlete had a better year than her. What athlete? Tell me, I’m listening,” Ma$se said on the Come and Talk 2 Me podcast.
“She took a college team that didn’t have anybody to the NCAA Championship. Then she took a team that hadn’t been in the playoffs in years in Indiana to the playoffs. Then she broke all the WNBA rookie records along the way while doing it,” he added.
Leaving aside the overall success of the teams (because a player can only do so much for herself if her team does not help equally), the impact of Caitlin Clark has been singular for many observers, and she has just finished her first year.