The Japanese baseball team created a dramatic drama and lifted the WBC (World Baseball Classic) championship trophy after 14 years. From the first round, the quarterfinals, the semifinals, and the final, he won seven matches and reached the top. This is the third championship following the first and second tournaments in 2006 and 2009. As a major league player, he defeated Mexico and the United States, which consisted of players, and achieved a perfect victory.

The WBC, the world’s best baseball national competition, is the only major league player to participate. Unless it’s the WBC, you can’t see ‘pitcher’ Shohei Ohtani (29, LA Angels) throwing a ball against his teammate Mike Trout (32, LA Angels). In soccer, it is the FIFA (International Football Federation) Adult World Cup held every four years.

However, the prize money is very small, which does not match the status of the competition.

The total prize money for this tournament is 14.4 million dollars (approximately 18.8 billion won), and the winning prize is 1 million dollars (approximately 1.3 billion won). Including everything from the group stage to stage prize money, the winning team received 3 million dollars (approximately 3.9 billion won) and the runner-up team received 2 million dollars 스포츠토토(approximately 2.6 billion won).

The total prize money for the championship is just one-tenth of the annual salary of Ohtani, who was selected as the MVP, of 30 million dollars (approximately 39.2 billion won) this year. Half of the prize money is taken by the Japan Baseball Organization (NPB), and half is distributed to the players. Since there are 30 players in the Japanese national team (31 including Soichiro Yamazaki, who joined as a substitute after the first round), 50,000 dollars (approximately 65.4 million won) per player will return.

It is an embarrassing amount to call it the prize money.

Masataka Yoshida (30, Boston), who is about to make his major league debut, this year’s annual salary is 18 million dollars (approximately 23.5 billion won). Yoshinobu Yamamoto (25, Orix), the highest paid player in Japanese professional baseball, will receive 650 million yen (approximately 6.4 billion won) this year, and Murakami Munetaka (23, Yakult) will receive 600 million yen (approximately 5.9 billion won). It is far less than the salary that most representative players receive per month.

The Japanese national team, which aimed to win the championship, started convocation training on February 17th. Representative players quickly prepared for the opening of the WBC, not the opening of their league, and raised the pace. I didn’t participate in the national team because of the prize money, but the reward is too small compared to the amount of effort I put in.

A player from the Japanese national team who had previously won the championship said, “It was a very honorable event, but I was surprised by the small amount of prize money.” As a result, there is a demand to increase the amount of prize money.

If you compare it to the soccer world cup, it gets more shabby.

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar had a total prize money of 440 million dollars (approximately 575.3 billion won), with 42 million dollars (approximately 54.9 billion won) for the winning team and 30 million dollars (approximately 39.2 billion won) for the runner-up team.