Why Messi's $28M competes with Ohtani's deferred $700M

Shohei Ohtani's ten-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers defers $680 million of its value to the years 2034 through 2043, without interest, as the Associated Press reported when the deal was signed in December 2023. That single clause is why comparing his headline number to Lionel Messi's $28 million MLS salary is the most common error in American coverage of both athletes.

Time erodes the value of a deferred dollar

During Ohtani's playing years, he draws a salary of $2 million a season. The remaining $68 million per year arrives a decade or more later, and because the deferrals carry no interest, Ohtani absorbs every bit of the erosion that time and inflation impose on money.

Baseball itself already did this math. For luxury-tax purposes, MLB values the contract at roughly $46 million a year, about $460 million in present-value terms, as the Associated Press reported. That is not a skeptic's estimate. It is the sport's own accounting, and it prices the most famous contract in American sports at about two-thirds of its headline.

Messi's smaller number is real money now

Messi's guaranteed compensation for 2026 is $28.33 million, per the MLS Players Association's filed salary data, and it lands this year, already spendable. It is also only the floor of the arrangement.

On top of the filed salary sit the pieces that never appear in a union spreadsheet: a revenue share on Apple's MLS coverage reported by The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal at roughly $50 million a year, a profit-share with Adidas on MLS business, and a reported option on roughly 10 percent of Inter Miami's equity, valued around $135 million, exercisable after retirement. Inter Miami co-owner Jorge Mas has put the all-in club economics at $70 million to $80 million a year.

Forbes has already scored this contest

Forbes' 2026 highest-paid-athletes list settles the current-income question directly. Messi ranks third in the world at $140 million for the year. Ohtani ranks fifth at $127.6 million. On the most widely cited annual measure in sports business, the athlete with the $28 million salary out-earns the athlete with the $700 million contract.

The composition of Ohtani's figure explains how both realities coexist. The bulk of his annual earnings is endorsement income, which is precisely what makes a $2 million playing salary livable. His contract is enormous, though his current contract cash flow, by his own design, stays modest.

Why the headline comparison keeps fooling people

The error is anchoring. A contract total, an annual salary, a year's earnings, and a net worth are four different quantities, and the $700 million figure is the largest-sounding and least current of them all. MLB deals are long and fully guaranteed, so their totals tower over MLS filed compensation, which is reported annually. Stack a ten-year total against a one-year figure and the conclusion writes itself, wrongly.

The structures also serve opposite goals. Ohtani's deferral bought the Dodgers luxury-tax room to build a roster around him, and bought Ohtani guaranteed income deep into his forties. Messi's syndicate structure spreads his pay across the club, Apple, and Adidas, buying him current cash and upside tied to the league's growth. Neither is universally better; they are different instruments solving different problems.

One mechanical note belongs here, stated generally. Deferred compensation is typically taxed when it is received rather than when it is earned, and the recipient's state of residence in the payout years can matter under US state tax law. The statutes work this way regardless of who is affected. Neither man's personal tax position is public, and we make no claim about either one.

The clearest way to say it

Ohtani signed the bigger contract, and it is not close. Messi collects more money right now, and per Forbes' own list, that is not close either. Both statements are true at once; only one of them fits in a headline, and it is usually the wrong one for understanding who earns what today.