MLB’s top 10 earners will haul in $576 million combined this season, led by the sport’s first two $100 million men in Mets signing Juan Soto and Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani.
The NFL may be the world’s most lucrative sports league, but Major League Baseball will beat it to one milestone this year: a player making at least $100 million in a single season.
In fact, MLB will do it twice.
New York Mets right fielder Juan Soto is baseball’s highest-paid player, due to collect an estimated $126.9 million in 2025 before taxes and agents’ fees, and Los Angeles Dodgers two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani will join him in the nine-figure club with an estimated $102 million. Previously, MLB’s top earnings figure was Ohtani’s $65 million in 2023. (No football player, meanwhile, has exceeded Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott’s 2024 total of $96.3 million in a single league year.)
The two stars reached their landmark paydays by traveling two very different paths. Soto, the most coveted free agent of this off-season, joined the Mets on a 15-year, $765 million contract, which could rise in value to $805 million if the team chooses to exercise a clause to void an opt-out and keep him in Queens. The 26-year-old slugger will add to his $46.9 million salary for 2025 with a $75 million signing bonus. He then tacks on another $5 million from endorsements.
For Ohtani, the split is almost the exact opposite. While he signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers before last season, he deferred 97% of the value until 2034 and beyond, leaving him just $2 million in salary each year up to that point. But he will haul in an estimated $100 million off the field this year thanks to one of the most lucrative sponsor portfolios in sports history.
With new Dodgers signing Blake Snell also beating Ohtani’s previous MLB earnings mark by totaling an estimated $65.6 million this season, baseball’s 10 highest-paid players are set to be paid $576 million combined in 2025, an astonishing 25% increase from 2024’s record $462 million.
Still, Soto and Ohtani are rightfully drawing most of the attention. Only eight other team-sports athletes have crossed the $100 million threshold in a single season: the NBA’s LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo and soccer stars Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Kylian Mbappé and Karim Benzema.
“These milestones feel a lot like records,” says David M. Carter, a sports business consultant and adjunct professor of management and organization at USC. “They are meant to be broken, and in ways we have yet to fully contemplate given how rapidly content is changing, being distributed and monetized.”
Ohtani is in even more rarefied air as one of only four active athletes ever to have hit $100 million off the field in 12 months, along with Conor McGregor (who made $158 million in 2021 after selling his whiskey brand, Proper No. Twelve), Tiger Woods ($105 million in 2009) and Roger Federer ($100 million in 2020). It’s even more impressive considering how baseball has lagged behind other major sports with its marketing opportunities, with MLB’s rigorous schedule and an aging and hyper-regionalized fan base often leaving endorsement deals in short supply.
Outside of Ohtani, who earned an estimated $60 million last year from his business ventures, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge and Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper lead the way off the field with an estimated $8 million each. Excluding equity payouts, no other player has come close to touching the $9 million that Derek Jeter was pulling in when he retired in 2014.
But Ohtani—who is sponsored by more than 20 companies, including New Balance, Beats by Dre and Fanatics in the U.S. and Kose skincare, Kowa pharmaceuticals and Seiko watches across the Pacific—is working with a different kind of math thanks to the baseball-obsessed Japanese market. His adoring fans there watch his games in numbers that can exceed even the American viewership, and his image is plastered on billboards and products around the country in a way that has no direct parallel to an athlete in the U.S.
Daisuke Sugiura, a cofounder of Japan-focused sports agency Gifted Existence Management, notes that many Japanese companies are trying to expand outside their home market and “right now, Ohtani is the big ticket to becoming a global company.” That has led many prospective partners to meet the superstar’s exorbitant rates—and given that many of the country’s CEOs are baseball fans, there may be an element of gaining access to Ohtani, too. “I think he’s harder to meet than the president,” adds Sugiura, who watched the Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs in a Tokyo Dome sell-out last week to open the 2025 regular season.
Ohtani, who led the total earnings ranking in each of the last two years, may face another challenge for No. 1 in 2026 from Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is due to test free agency in the off-season. But he shouldn’t have to worry about Soto, whose massive signing bonus (along with Snell’s $52 million bonus) is a one-time payout that will be coming off the books.
When it comes to baseball players’ income, Ohtani is just in a different ballpark.
MLB’S 10 HIGHEST-PAID PLAYERS 2025
#1. $126.9 million
Age: 26 | Position: Right Fielder | Team: New York Mets | On-Field: $121.9 million | Off-Field: $5 million
Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images
In addition to the money in his $765 million megadeal with the Mets, signed in December, Soto will reportedly get a luxury suite and as many as four premium tickets behind home plate for games at Citi Field, as well as security and assistance with travel arrangements for his family during the season. The deal also guaranteed him his No. 22 jersey, a number he has worn at every stop on his major league journey—but Soto still gave teammate Brett Baty a car to thank him for giving up the digits. Off the field, the Dominican-born Soto, who at 26 is the only member of the earnings top 10 who has not turned 30, has partnerships with energy drink Celsius, Banreservas Bank and beer brand Presidente.
#2. $102 million
Age: 30 | Position: Designated Hitter/Pitcher | Team: Los Angeles Dodgers | On-Field: $2 million | Off-Field: $100 million
Godofredo A. Vásquez/Associated Press
Ohtani, who recovered from a gambling scandal involving his longtime interpreter last spring to capture his third MVP Award and a World Series ring, has renegotiated a few existing endorsement deals and signed up five new Japanese sponsors over the past year: English-language education company ECC, convenience store chain Family Mart, tea maker Ito En, security provider Secom and food brand Nisshin Seifun Welna. Ohtani also partnered with Epic Games, the North Carolina-based publisher behind Fortnite, following in the footsteps of sports stars LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes and Neymar Jr. as he lends his likeness to the popular title.
#3. $65.6 million
Age: 32 | Position: Pitcher | Team: Los Angeles Dodgers | On-Field: $64.8 million | Off-Field: $0.8 million
Ashley Landis/Associated Press
After Snell won the National League Cy Young Award in 2023, he found an underwhelming market for his services and had to take a two-year, $62 million deal with the San Francisco Giants. But while his follow-up campaign in the Bay Area was less productive and injuries limited him to 20 starts, Snell exercised an opt-out and landed a bigger payday this off-season: a five-year, $182 million deal with the defending champion Dodgers. (Of course, this being Los Angeles, a large chunk of the contract is deferred for at least a decade.) The 32-year-old starter has seven sponsors in his stable, including Nike, jewelry maker Jaxxon and luxury fashion brand Santo Studio.
#4. $48 million
Age: 32 | Position: Right Fielder | Team: New York Yankees | On-Field: $40 million | Off-Field: $8 million
New York Yankees/Getty Images
Last season ended in heartbreak for Aaron Judge, whose New York Yankees lost the World Series to the Dodgers in five games as he struggled at the plate. But the 32-year-old slugger posted yet another historic regular-season campaign in 2024, leading the league in home runs (58), runs batted in (144) and on-base percentage (.458) and winning his second MVP Award. He similarly excels off the field, tying with Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper as baseball’s most marketable player not named Shohei Ohtani. In the past year, Judge has added deals with Polo Ralph Lauren and Logan Paul’s Prime Hydration.
#5. $42.2 million
Age: 34 | Position: Pitcher | Team: Philadelphia Phillies | On-Field: $42 million | Off-Field: $0.2 million
Steve Boyle/MLB Photos/Getty Images
After finishing sixth in National League Cy Young Award voting in 2023, Wheeler received a three-year, $142 million extension from the Philadelphia Phillies. He immediately rewarded the franchise with an All-Star season, a second-place Cy Young finish and down-ballot MVP votes. Beyond his playing contract, the 34-year-old pitcher, who is set to start for the Phillies on Opening Day, works with Nike and Fanatics.
#6. $40.3 million
Age: 36 | Position: Pitcher | Team: Texas Rangers | On-Field: $40 million | Off-Field: $0.3 million
Alika Jenner/Getty Images
In two seasons with the Rangers to begin a five-year, $185 million contract, deGrom has made just nine starts, with Tommy John surgery sidelining him for almost 17 months. Now healthy, the 36-year-old pitcher may yet return to his other-worldly form. He posted a 1.69 ERA in 10 ⅔ innings pitched in September and racked up three strikeouts in two innings in spring training this year. According to DraftKings, deGrom enters the 2025 season with the fourth-best odds to win the American League Cy Young Award at 14-to-1.
#7. $39.5 million
Age: 33 | Position: Right Fielder | Team: Los Angeles Angels | On-Field: $35.5 million | Off-Field: $4 million
Dylan Buell/Getty Images
Injuries, including a torn left meniscus that held him to 29 games in 2024, have decimated the last five years of Mike Trout’s career. That’s why the future Hall of Famer is making a permanent switch from center field to right, a move intended to reduce the wear and tear that comes with playing his old position. Beyond the ballpark, Trout has partnerships with Nike, Topps and Com2uS, which makes the MLB 9 Innings mobile game. The 33-year-old slugger is also building a golf course with Tiger Woods’ design firm that is slated to open in April 2026.
#8. $38.1 million
Age: 34 | Position: Third Baseman | Team: Los Angeles Angels | On-Field $38 million | Off-Field: $0.1 million
Gene Wang/Getty Images
Rendon’s tenure with the Angels has been both long and shockingly brief. Since signing a seven-year, $245 million contract with Los Angeles after the 2019 season, the 34-year-old third baseman has appeared in only 257 of a possible 708 games. The 2025 season won’t be much different: Angels general manager Perry Minasian told reporters last month that Rendon would undergo hip surgery and “it’s going to be a while until he’s back.”
#9. $37 million
Age: 34 | Position: Pitcher | Team: New York Yankees | On-Field: $36 million | Off-Field: $1 million
Luke Hales/Getty Images
Despite opting out of his contract with the Yankees this off-season, Cole chose to return to the Bronx and play out the four years (and $144 million) remaining on the $324 million deal he had signed in 2020. Just two starts into his spring training, however, disaster struck as the Yankees announced that their 34-year-old ace would undergo Tommy John surgery, sidelining Cole for the entire 2025 season. As he works to get back onto the field, Cole counts Nike, Fanatics and men’s apparel band Untuckit among his sponsors.
#10. $36.5 million
Age: 30 | Position: Shortstop | Team: Minnesota Twins | On-Field: $36 million | Off-Field: $0.5 million
Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images
Correa earned his third All-Star selection last season, but a lingering bout of plantar fasciitis in his right heel made him skip the game and ultimately kept him off the field until mid-September. The former American League rookie of the year’s ability to stay healthy will directly affect his bank account going forward. Correa has four vesting options from 2029 to 2032 that could net him an additional $70 million beyond the six-year, $200 million contract he signed with the Twins two years ago.
METHODOLOGY
The Forbes ranking of baseball’s highest-paid players reflects on-field earnings for the 2025 season, including base salaries, signing bonuses and deferred payments. Incentives that are based on individual or team performance are not included.
The off-field earnings estimates are determined through conversations with industry insiders and reflect annual cash from endorsements, licensing, appearances and memorabilia, as well as cash returns from any businesses in which the athlete has a significant interest. Investment income such as interest payments or dividends is not included, but Forbes does account for payouts from equity stakes athletes have sold. Forbes does not deduct for taxes or agents’ fees.
MORE FROM FORBES
Read the full article here