Skip Bayless finds way to hate on Lakers' LeBron James via Shohei Ohtani's Dodgers deal

Skip Bayless used news of Shohei Ohtani’s record-breaking contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers as an opportunity to take a shot at LeBron James, who has long been one of the talk show host’s favorite targets. After Ohtani signed his massive new contract with the Dodgers, Bayless took aim at the Lakers star by telling him that the city of Los Angeles has a new top sports star.

Via Skip Bayless:

“Move over, LeBron. You're now the second biggest sports star in Hollywood.”

Twitter users were quick to point out to Bayless that Ohtani is not new to the city of Los Angeles. Although he just signed with the Dodgers, Ohtani has played for the Los Angeles Angels since his MLB debut back in 2018.

It is also difficult, if not impossible, to measure, which player is truly the bigger star. While the NBA is certainly more popular in America than MLB, and the NBA without question does a better job of marketing and promoting their star players, Ohtani is almost unquestionably the most marketable star in baseball. While “King James” may be more popular in the United States, Ohtani is without a doubt the most recognizable Japanese star in the world, and he has an entire country of fans back home.

If Bayless meant that LeBron was the second biggest star in terms of money, his tweet still leaves out important context and paints an incomplete picture. One key difference between Ohtani and James are the sports that they play and the rules regarding player compensation for each sport. 

Baseball does not have a salary cap, and the luxury tax is meant as a soft guideline to make teams hesitant to spend over the limit, but there is no hard cap that they can’t go beyond. There are also no maximum contracts in baseball. In fact, it has been argued in the past that when he was in his prime, James was arguably the most underpaid athlete of all time.

Ultimately, it is silly to compare two players with completely different personalities who play two completely different sports, and it is even sillier to use one great player’s accomplishment to take a shot at another great player as Bayless does here.