A $700 Million Blurry Instagram Post
Make it make sense.
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Last week, Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani signed a record-breaking $700 million, 10-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This isn’t just the biggest contract in MLB history; it’s the biggest sports contract ever signed, beating out soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo’s $536 million two-and-a-half year contract with Saudi Arabia's Al Nassr team.
It’s also the biggest contract for any athlete playing in the four major sports in North America (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB).
For context, during Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James’ entire career, he is estimated to earn $482 million. This man is about to turn 39 and has been playing professional basketball for over 20 years!
Ohtani has been a professional baseball player for 10 years. Oh, and he’s 29.
Before getting into the announcement post in question, it’s important to address the messy and chaotic day that led to this blurry announcement post in the first place.
The Contract
Early Friday morning, MLB Network reporter Jon Morosi reports that Ohtani is going to make a decision about the team he’s playing for next “possibly as early as today.”
As you might imagine, people start freaking out!
Then, a user on Twitter (I still will never say X) tweets that a jet from Anaheim is headed to Toronto. More on this user in a minute.
Is Ohtani on the plane?! Unclear. But it quickly became the most-watched flight on FlightAware.
Remember when everyone turned on that first Chiefs game to see Taylor Swift show up? It’s like that, but baseball, and instead of the Eras Tour, it’s the New Era Baseball Cap Tour.
There’s more!
A random opera singer in Canada (not a reporter lmao) said they heard that a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Yusei Kikuchi bought out an entire sushi restaurant near where they play the same night Ohtani’s plane was supposed to land in Toronto.
Again, there is still no confirmation that Ohtani is on this flight!
Then, another reporter confirmed that Ohtani was headed to the Blue Jays, but a different reporter quickly refuted the claim.
And remember that Morosi guy from earlier? He doubled down and tweeted that Ohtani hopped on a plane at not LAX with a dream and a lot of cardigans.
Then along comes Bob!
This USA Today reporter is like, “Ummmm NO he is NOT on that plane.” I’m sure you saw some silly little tweets referencing the capitalization below:
Okay I’ll land the plane…
As you might imagine, Ohtani was NOT on the plane. Who was on that plane, you ask?
Shark Tank judge, Robert Herjavec, who spoke with the Wall Street Journal about the entire mix-up:
And remember that Twitter account that posted that mysterious flight update? Well, the account no longer exists…
And it looks like Ohtani’s team allegedly planted false rumors and made this fake Twitter account to get $100 million more from the Dodgers.
And on Saturday, Ohtani officially put the Blue Jays rumors to rest and announced he was signing with the Dodgers.
This leads us to the post in question…
The Instagram Post
Outside of this newsletter, I work in social and digital strategy and have been doing it for over a decade.
Seeing a post like this for the announcement of your career hurts my little #content soul.
A blurry logo?! With black borders?! What are we doing here, people?!
It’s giving…I Searched ‘Los Angeles Dodgers Logo’ On Google Images And Downloaded The First One I Found Without Waiting For The Full Image To Load So It’s Pixelated But Who Cares Let’s Slap That In Canva And Add A Black Border To It That’ll Do Just Fine.
Here’s the thing: I love Ohtani!
He will go down as one of the best baseball players of all time. He can pitch and hit! It’s like if Tom Brady was also an MVP-level defensive player.
He’s! That! Guy!
To see this blurry little logo go up on main like he runs a meme account where you’re intentionally supposed to share blurry images is…just so…delulu.
At that point, I would’ve rather he posted this stock image as a bit:
The fact that he shared a blurry Dodgers logo to announce such a large sum of money in one of the most dramatic and chaotic contract negotiations to go down sort of feels on brand.
At the very least, maybe hire the graphic designer who created the post from the Shark Tank judge on that private jet???
At. The. Very. Least.
What Paying Subscribers Got
Former NFL linebacker Ryan Shazier needs help with two things: Being loyal to his wife and hiring a new graphic designer (@ my husband).
Last week, the former linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers made headlines, and not because of his medical marijuana company with the bad logo.
Shazier made headlines after his wife, Michelle, shared a since-deleted Instagram post alleging that he cheated on her with a woman named Marie.
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$700,000,000 can’t buy 72 pixels (graphic design humor)
I DID NOT KNOW ANY OF THIS HAHAHAHA WHAT AN ABSOLUTE SHARK TANK SURPRISE