Shohei Ohtani Unveils First Exclusive Sneaker After New Balance Deal

Despite not winning his second consecutive MVP award in 2022, Shohei Ohtani remains arguably the biggest and best player in baseball. The Japanese two-way phenom is coming into the final year of his contract and expected to steamroll past every contractual record for a free agent, both from a total dollar standpoint and an annual value one.

Shohei Ohtani Signs With New Balance

On Tuesday, Ohtani announced another source of income, a new sponsorship deal with New Balance, that came along with the reveal of a New Balance 574 custom cleat that will be released in February ahead of baseball season.

New Balance isn't new to the baseball apparel game, they have been making cleats and other accessories for a while now, but this partnership with Ohtani and the addition of cleats that resemble the company's most famous street sneaker both are new.

Ohtani's free agency will dominate the MLB hot stove next offseason and probably most of the year this season. It will now be back-to-back seasons where the two best players in baseball are unrestricted free agents, with Aaron Judge just going through it over the last couple of months.

For now, he'll be helping New Balance sell a whole bunch of shoes.

David Kaestle is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, David also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username davekaestle. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.