Rules
Part of Contracts and Salaries: The Parts Behind a Deal Total
Working checklist for highest contracts and salaries: the coverage bias
Highest contracts and salaries lists for 2027: how a ranking of announced ceilings gets mistaken for a ranking of pay, and which documents you can read instead.
What to take away
- A ranking of contracts is a ranking of announcements, so the largest 2027 figures describe publicity rather than pay.
- The biggest deals still on the books entering 2027 are Shohei Ohtani's reported $700 million Dodgers contract and Juan Soto's reported $765 million Mets contract.
- Sorting by total value rewards the largest contingent portion, not the largest guaranteed amount.
- Executive pay is the one category with a named person, a dated figure and a filed document.
- The six tests below show whether a 2027 number survives contact with its source.
A ceiling is not a payment
The figure announced at a signing is a ceiling. Both parties agreed it, and both gain from it being large. One side gets a headline, the other gets a recruiting story.
The largest reported totals still on the books entering 2027 were agreed in 2023 and 2024, not in 2027 itself. That does not make a number false. It makes it incomplete, and the missing part is what a ranking hides.
Term, guarantee and option are set out in our guide to contracts and salaries for readers who want structure rather than headline.
Six tests for any 2026 or 2027 figure
Six tests
- Date the report. A 2027 page often recycles a signing from 2023.
- Find the guarantee. If the wording says "up to", the floor is lower.
- Find the deferrals. Money paid in 2035 is not money available in 2027.
- Find the tax jurisdiction. A state with no income tax changes the net.
- Find the representation fee. Sports commissions commonly run 3 to 5 percent, a typical range.
- Find the source of the number. A briefing from a party to the deal is not a document.
[figure 1]
How the table is built
- Collect reported totals from signings coverage
- Take the largest available version
- Sort by total, not by guarantee
- Ignore the deductions
- Carry old entries forward
- Round and publish with a year attached
Dates, guarantees and deferrals account for most of the drift.
Example: the Ohtani contract, tested
Shohei Ohtani agreed terms with the Los Angeles Dodgers in December 2023. Reports put the total at $700 million over 10 years, with $680 million deferred. Major League Baseball's present-value calculation came to roughly $460 million.
Test one, the date: a 2027 table that lists this deal is carrying an entry from 2023. Test two, the guarantee: nearer $460 million than $700 million. Test three, the deferral: most of the cash arrives after the contract ends.
Juan Soto agreed terms with the New York Mets in December 2024, reported at $765 million over 15 years with no deferrals. Fewer moving parts, the same gap between the total and what arrives each year.
For the arithmetic that turns a reported total into an annual figure, our career earnings breakdown walks through the ledger.
Executive pay is the exception. Apple's proxy statement for fiscal 2024 reported Tim Cook's total compensation at about $74.6 million, including a $3 million salary. The filing is searchable in the SEC's EDGAR full-text search.
Coverage bias: which fields publish and which stay silent
These tables are dominated by a few fields. The reason is not that other fields pay less. It is that some industries announce figures and others never do.
Elite sport in the United States and Canada generates reported totals. Senior corporate roles generate disclosed totals. Most occupations generate neither, so they cannot appear.
A reader who treats the table as a map of money has been shown a map of announcements. The Bureau of Labor Statistics explains how its occupational wage survey covers the whole workforce.
The bias also shapes how single figures are estimated, which our estimate methodology field guide breaks into five steps.
Documents that answer specific questions
| Question | Document that answers it |
|---|---|
| What floor does the collective agreement set? | The agreement itself, published by the union or league |
| What pay rules apply alongside the contract? | Department of Labor fact sheets on salary and bonuses under the Fair Labor Standards Act |
| What did a company report paying its named officers? | The annual proxy statement |
| What did a contract dispute establish? | Court filings in the relevant court |
[figure 2]
Checkable documents by question
Question
- Collective agreement floor
- Agreement itself
- Statutory requirements
- DOL fact sheets
- Officer pay reported
- SEC EDGAR filings
- Contract dispute outcome
- Court filings
- Occupation-wide pay
- Official statistics
Document
- Collective agreement floor
- Statutory requirements
- Officer pay reported
- Contract dispute outcome
- Occupation-wide pay
Each row is dated and attributable. None of them ranks individuals, which is the part no document supports.
Why these tables outlive their deals
Entries get carried forward. A contract that has since been renegotiated, bought out or expired can sit in a table for years. The year printed on the page describes the page, not the checking.
The same carry-forward problem appears when reported totals are stacked into lifetime figures. Our assembly of highest career earnings shows how that stack is built, year by year.
Common questions
Some entries are described as fully guaranteed. Is that solid?
It is better if the description is accurate. It still leaves out tax, representation and the cost of doing the work.
Why do the same deals appear year after year?
Because entries are copied forward. A contract that has been renegotiated or has expired can stay listed long after it stopped describing anything.
Would a ranking of guaranteed money be better?
Yes, and it is not obtainable. The guarantee is the figure both sides are least likely to confirm, because the smaller number undercuts the announcement.
Can any 2027 figure be trusted?
Dated documents can. A reported total from a briefing cannot be checked, so treat it as a claim with a named source.
