Endorsments

Well, my understanding is that more players have "endorsement consultants" than player agents. Endorsement consultants, for the most part, work for major sporting goods makers.

Seibu's Matsuzaka had one his rookie year from Mizuno. But, after either the first or second year, he wanted to mix and match brands and didn't extend the contract (although he still uses Mizuno goods).

Nonetheless, such contracts often cover more than just sporting goods endorsements, going on to endorse video cameras, other home electronics, Pepsi Cola, and yakiniku sauce.

Ichiro, after breaking the 200 hit barrier in 1994, earned more on advertising for Nissan, House Shokuhin, and Panasonic (I think) than he did from the Orix BlueWave the next year (or any year after that). He paid more in taxes for 1995 for just his endorsements than I've earned in 10 years as a software engineer.

Unfortunatly, again, you're asking for stats that I glance over without much interest. Batting and pitching stats I find interesting. How much players are getting for endorsements, unless it's a huge headline like Ichiro or Matsuzka had gotten, I don't generally notice. I'm just one of those people who doesn't get excited about money. You couldn't pay me to use a Microsoft operating system, and I've turned down a lot of offers over the years from advertisers who had seemingly never concieved that anyone wouldn't want to put their banner ads up.