Crunching Numbers: The Financial Strategy Behind Shohei Ohtani's $700 Million Deal

The Business Edge

Feliciano School of Business professors Todd Federman and David Axelrod from the Department of Economics discuss Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani's $700 million contract. The contract covers 10 years of play but will be paid out over 20 years. They explain how the contract is beneficial to both Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers through business concepts like present value, elasticity, inflation, and supply and demand.
Speaker Bios
Dr. Axelrod received his Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University in 1990, with the dissertation Three Essays on Latency in Economics and Decision Making. He has taught at Montclair State University as an adjunct professor since 2013. Previously, he worked in finance for twenty years as an economist, consultant and actuarial analyst, including positions with Falcon Management, Volvo Finance, and Crum & Forster. He has also produced research in health economics, and the nature of choice and well-being. Dr. Axelrod provides holonomic consultation and workshops. He plays electric bass, and has released over a dozen albums of original music.

After getting an MBA from Harvard, Todd Federman started his twenty-five year Wall Street career at Goldman Sachs as a bond trader. He then joined Drexel Burnham as both a bond and equity trader. After Drexel, Todd spent fifteen years at hedge fund Paloma Partners, managing a regional office and trading equities based on a proprietary technical trading model. After leaving Wall Street, he started a second career in education. Todd was an adjunct in the Mathematics department at MSU from 2009-2014 before joining the Economics department full time in the fall of 2014. Todd was also an independent Education Consultant. He ran professional development workshops, focused on showing teachers how to use Smart Boards effectively.