Brace yourselves. More jokes and references about Bobby Bonilla’s well-documented contract with the New York Jets have arrived.
On Saturday, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani to a record-setting 10-year deal worth $700 million. It is the richest contract in the history of professional sports, surpassing the $674 million pact that Lionel Messi signed with Barcelona FC in 2017.
In an update, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic revealed that Ohtani will defer $68 million of his annual $70 million through the duration of his deal with the Dodgers. Ardaya added that Ohtani will be paid $680 million of the $700 million from 2034 to 2043.
The structure of Ohtani’s deal led to plenty of Bonilla jokes for obvious reasons. The ex-Met gets paid roughly $1.2 million by the club each year on July 1 2035 thanks to a contract he and his agent cleverly negotiated. Bonilla’s annual $1.2 million payment began in 2011.
Bonilla was released by the Mets after a frustrating 1999 campaign. The club owed him $5.9 million, but Bonilla and his agent secured an agreement that would see him get paid a little over $1 million per year from 2011 to 2035.
So instead of paying Bonilla $5.9 million up front, the Mets agreed to a far more lucrative deal that was a victory for Bonilla and his agent. The agreement will have netted Bonilla approximately $23 million more over time, and that’s before taking inflation into account.