Lots More on Shohei Ohtani's $700 Million Contract

Joe Weisenthal (0:00)

Hello, and welcome to it. My voice is totally shot.

Conor Sen (0:03)

Whoa, oh my gosh.

Joe Weisenthal (0:05)

I know, sorry. My voice is totally shot.

Yeah. So maybe I'll just let Tracy do all the talking.

Tracy Alloway (0:12)

I'm glad we're doing a baseball episode on the day that you've lost your voice.

Joe Weisenthal (0:20)

I did a deadlift.

Conor Sen (0:21)

One, two, three.

Tracy Alloway (0:22)

Hegemony. Hegemony, barges.

Joe Weisenthal (0:27)

This is an after school special, except.

Tracy Alloway (0:29)

I've decided I'm going to base my entire personality going forward on campaigning for a strategic pork reserve in the US.

Joe Weisenthal (0:35)

Where's the best squid ink pasta?

Tracy Alloway (0:37)

These are the important questions. Is it robots taking over the world?

Joe Weisenthal (0:40)

No, I think that like in a couple of years, the AI will do a really good job of making the Odd Lots podcast.

And people will say, I don't really need to listen to Joe and Tracy anymore. We do have the perfect guest.

Tracy Alloway (0:55)

Until then, this is Lots More.

Joe Weisenthal (0:57)

A weekly chat about whatever's on our mind.

Tracy Alloway (1:00)

And we really do have the perfect guest.

Joe Weisenthal (1:06)

Tracy, I'm sorry, my voice sounds so terrible today.

Tracy Alloway (1:09)

It's okay, it's not like it's a problem for a professional podcaster to lose their voice.

Joe Weisenthal (1:13)

It's not like my entire career and profession is entirely premised on my ability to speak.

Tracy Alloway (1:19)

How was the show?

Joe Weisenthal (1:20)

Our band had our first show last night, Skinny Dennis and Williamsburg. It was very good. I guess I sang a little bit too hard, but I was, for our first time.

Conor Sen (1:29)

You know, Taylor Swift was doing this three hours a night.

Joe Weisenthal (1:32)

Well, that's what I've been wondering, like, seriously.

Tracy Alloway (1:34)

You need to do vocal exercises. Your voice is a muscle, Joe, you have to practice.

Joe Weisenthal (1:38)

How the hell did she do that? I've thought about this. And like, how did she avoid getting a flu, you know? It's like a whole year you get sick and like, it's honestly like, the fact that she did that to her blows my mind.

Tracy Alloway (1:51)

Joe, it sounds so painful listening to you. I hope you're okay.

SPEAKER_4 (1:56)

She almost didn't get to meet Travis Kelce because the first time he came to her concert, she was like, I can't meet and talk to anybody beforehand because I'm resting my voice. So they didn't meet.

Tracy Alloway (2:06)

Do you think they just stared at each other from like across the room?

Joe Weisenthal (2:09)

As our producer Dash, who I think for the, well.

Tracy Alloway (2:13)

Dash has been on.

Joe Weisenthal (2:14)

He's been on. And we're also speaking to our friend and Bloomberg Opinion contributor and Fed Watcher and sports watcher, Connorsen.

Tracy Alloway (2:23)

Can I just say there's a supreme irony that the day we're talking about baseball, Joe has lost his voice. So apologies in advance to listeners if I am forced to carry this episode and I honestly know nothing about the topic, but I will do my best.

Joe Weisenthal (2:37)

But Tracy, you may not know much about baseball, but you understand that if a baseball player sends a $700 million contract that stipulates that for like the first nine years, they get paid $2 million a year. And then for the next 10 years or something, they get paid $68 million a year. That's at least a financially interesting conversation.

Tracy Alloway (2:57)

Yeah, I agree. The other thing I would like to say is before this week and before this contract was signed, I had never heard of this particular player, which perhaps says something about the state of major league baseball.

Conor Sen (3:10)

I feel like you can sort of talk about this topic without having anything to do with baseball, which is what makes it kind of fun. It's like a $700 million contract with weird money being deferred. And it's just a fun thing to talk about.

Joe Weisenthal (3:21)

But Tracy's point is really interesting, which is it's kind of wild to hear a $700 million contract in an industry.

Tracy Alloway (3:29)

For someone a lot of people haven't heard of.

Joe Weisenthal (3:31)

And in an industry that by many people's accounts is like on secular decline, it's clearly not as like in the media, in the public consciousness as NBA, nothing like NFL. Where's this money coming from to pay someone $700 million?