How much is Aaron Judge worth to a MLB team?

This is the Adam Gold Show. He's been a little bit out there or a lot out there, but now it's costing him. The relationship with Adidas is now over, and let's get into that specifically to Adidas. What does it take for Adidas to essentially give away maybe close to $500 million if it's ultimately going to be that number?

Well, they had a real issue, I think, because people didn't understand, people don't understand really the size of this business, and it's irreplaceable in that it's not like there's just another athlete that will come along. Because of the culture, because of what it is, they said that it was essentially a write-down in the fourth quarter of $246 million, but that's not how that number works. That number works is that's their net income loss, and net income is essentially what they make after all costs. If you then assume that their net income number on a Yeezy is around $20, so they sell it for... It's sold for $200, so they make it...

I have to just explain this, because we'll get that $246 million number in context, is $20 for net income. They make it basically for, what, $75 total? They sell it to the retailer for $150, or $100, $150.

The retailer sells it to you for $300. In gross costs, and when you figure out everything, net income is basically one-tenth of what the retail market is. They're essentially telling you that in the fourth quarter, to write this down and to stop it, it's costing you not $246 million, but about $2.46 billion in retail.

That's what they were weighing, and at the end of the day, found that they had no choice. I do think that they were pushed within themselves, because they do have a heritage in Germany, they're out of Germany, there's a Nazi heritage there, and given the attack on Jews, it became even worse, if that's possible. Yeah, and for people who don't know, this is the Adidas brand. It's not like in the last 50 years, I grew up in the 70s, and everybody had Adidas shoes in the 70s, but they actually go back to making supplies for the German Army in World War II. That's how far back Adidas goes. It's not just an apparel company, so there is that connection, and they are trying to move away from that. Yeah, they shut down their factories to help create other things during the war, and outfitted the Hitler Nazi youth.

All right, now, I guess we still have to deal with this issue with Yay. Yay, it's not just the Adidas that has cut him loose, a lot of other companies have done the same, correct? Yeah, Balenciaga, CAA, it seems like almost everyone. The problem is, there's some people who have been saying, this is what I can't stand. People saying, well, he meant to do this, because he wants to do it all himself and keep all the money himself.

Yeah. Who's going to work for Kanye? He can't do it all himself, actually. In order to pull off the supply chain, and all the planning, and everything that Adidas does, and all these other companies do, you need a staff of 1,000 people. Who's working for him? Well, you'll always find somebody to work for anybody, but I understand the larger point.

No, no, no, no. You need good people. You need good people. Okay, that's a good point. That's where the herd gets thinned.

The good people get a lot harder, because no one wants equity in Kanye right now. Well, yeah, it is. And actually, what's interesting is that Jalen Brown, the guard for the Boston Celtics, who announced two days ago that he does not agree with the things that Ye has said, but I'm staying with Ye's representative, whatever the name of the company is. It's on the sports, it's on the sports. They rep athletes, and the next day, he said no. Yeah, because there's other parts of him that make sense, and then a major turn.

I think, I actually... There are some owners, and there are some people that I have a lot of respect for, because what they do is, if a player makes a mistake, they will say, they will say something. One of those owners, the Celtics owners, Wick Grousebeck in particular, I guarantee you, he said something, or Steve Caliuca, those two guys, it's fun guys.

I guarantee, they know that the Celtics brand is their brand, and they said to Jalen Brown, dude, you can't do this. So eventually, it was going to come down. Yeah, absolutely had to.

Aaron Donald also is another guy who pulled out. How much is this costing Ye, do you think? I mean, I think it's costing him everything he's built. It's going to be difficult to build it back.

Now, I will say that it's probably easier to build it back in the world that we live in, where people enjoy being split, and people enjoy taking sides, no matter what those sides are. There's going to be people who will side with Kanye and be emboldened by Kanye, and yesterday, there were people who were dumping their Yeezys, and then on StockX, on the other side, they were buying Yeezys. So I don't think he's done done, but I do think that this is costing him a lot. Darren Revell Action Network is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. All right, let me get to Aaron Judge. So Aaron Judge is 30 or 31, something like that. He is coming off a historic season, American League home run record for a regular season, and some people actually assign him as the all time single season home run record, whatever it doesn't matter. I'm not getting into that conversation, but Judge bet on himself in the preseason by turning down an offer from the Yankees for about $213 million over seven years. The number is going to be at least double that when he hits free agency.

I don't buy that the number will get to 500. What do you think ultimately it will be? Aaron Judge It depends on what type of money he wants now and how much he cares about the number, because I think that the Yankees can offer him roughly 75 to $100 million less, and he should take that offer, because I think he is much more valuable as a Yankee in the endorsement world, autographed world, in any kind of quick money he can make.

So that's what it will come down to. Now, I'm assuming that anyone who pays that type of money is going to be a team with great heritage, right? To be the Dodgers or the Red Sox, but I do think that if he becomes a Red Sox or if he becomes a Dodger, it's kind of, you know, Red Sox more than Dodgers, it's an issue for future marketing, because he just seems to be naturally a Yankee at this point. But how much would his value change if he signed with the Mets? Aaron Judge That's the toughest question, because he'd still be in New York, and Mets and Yankees where it is right now, since the Mets haven't won since 86, like being in New York, New Jersey area, like Nets don't hate the Yankees as much as other, you know, as much as devils and islanders fans hate the Rangers, right?

So I actually think that's probably the deal that he should take at the highest number. Would be the Mets. By the way, I'll disagree that Mets fans don't hate Yankees fans growing up a Mets fan. And still, I'm a Mets fan.

I got no use for the Yankees. I do love Aaron Judge. If he wants to go to the San Francisco Giants, which is where I actually think he will end up, what do you think the number is? And does the number, like, I think the, it's not going to get to 500 because I can't imagine any team giving him a 10, it would have to be more than a 10 year deal to get to 500. I don't think anybody's going to give him 50 million a year. Aaron Judge No, but, but, but it's interesting.

Now you're going to the place that if he's living there, you know, that's, that's the, that's a 13.3% you know, income tax. Right. He's, he's from Northern California.

He's from like an hour or so west of, or east of San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, who knows it's interesting that he wants, if he winds up on the bonds team, you know?

Absolutely. No, it's, it, I, I ultimately, if he doesn't, I think if he doesn't resign with the Yankees, I guess the Mets could buy him. But the Mets don't want to move one of the, they're, they're probably going to resign a centerfield or we don't need to talk about the Mets.

They disappointed me again, Darren, I don't really want to get into that. So we'll have to leave the Mets thing, but the Aaron Judge thing, what is he worth? We'll close on this. What is he worth as an endorser? I think his personality has to come along a little bit more.

I mean, it's a lot more than the home runs. It's interesting because there are brands like A-Shock and a couple of brands that have him and haven't really used him. So I, you know, I, I think he's worth, he, his personality has got to come along a little bit more to be honest with you.

Now that, I mean, Derek Jeter didn't do a ton either when he, when he was an athlete, when he was an active player, he did not do a ton because he re he never showed you a personality. Darren Ravel on Twitter at Darren Ravel action network. I appreciate your time. My friend. We'll talk again soon. You got it. Love catching up with Darren Ravel.

All right. When we come back, where is judge going to land? And look, I, I often talk about in, in terms of media performance art, wait till you hear performance art from an absolute legend in sports media about Aaron judge next. It was not a good post-season for Aaron judge, right?

We all have to come to grips with that. He did it a couple of home runs in the ALDS five game series with Cleveland. He went, he hit 200 in the series and then he would hit 063 as the Yankees got swept by Houston. Really even more troubling is that he struck out 11 times in 21 plate appearances against the guardians.

I almost called them their old name. He only struck out four times in 17 plate appearances against the Astros, but 15 strikeouts in 38 plate appearances. Judges not, I mean, strikes out a lot, but he doesn't strike out that much. So it was an uncharacteristically awful post-season for Aaron judge. It will not damage one bit what he will get in free agency.

Not one single bit. He didn't have a good post-season and as a result, and we could all cry about this, Dennis, the Yankees have now gone 13 straight years without winning a world series. How dare unbelievable. Oh, the humanity.

Oh, damn. And gosh, them and Boston sports fans as well, they're just suffering right now, lack of championships. Uh, Boston Red Sox were bad. I think the Bruins actually might be sneaky good this year. They're off to a very good start.

Hey, I'm, we'll talk about that. Maybe tomorrow we're going to talk a little bit about Boston sports. Um, but the, the Yankees are in a drought. It's not their longest drought. They once went from 78 to 96 between world series championships. That's 18 whole years.

Whoo. I mean, we could be looking at a drought as long or longer. This current iteration of the Yankees, I don't think is a slam dunk. They're not the best team. They weren't the best team in the American league. They got off to an amazing start and then it kind of fell apart. So, but the season becomes a disaster if they don't sign judge in free agency.

It becomes an absolute dumpster fire. I remember saying this when judge turned down the seven year, $213 million offer from the Yankees in the spring. And I just, all I could think of is why you low ball in your guy. I know it's, and it was funny how it was processed because everybody seemed to be appalled that he was turning down at $213 million contract like, yeah, because he's worth a lot more than that. But at the time before this year, he was worth $100 million more than they were offering him on a seven year extension.

And I couldn't figure out why smart people understood that, but they couldn't apparently. They low balled the wrong guy and then he went out and proved his worth. Now, is he going to hit 62 again? No.

He's going to be in the mid to upper forties every year. Yeah. Right. He's going to be in that and he's otherwise just a spectacular baseball player. He just happens to be six, nine or whatever he is. Yeah. He's a giant, maybe, maybe literally and figuratively with Steve Cohen, about $12 in tolls across town as the owner of the Mets. I actually think I might have that right.

About $12 in tolls. The Giants, his hometown team, willing to back up the Brinks truck, they are already on record as saying we will not be outbid. So whatever the number is, he's going to get it from the Giants if that's where he wants to be. Or even the Dodgers. Here's Chris Russo, legend of sports radio and now with ESPN. Here's Russo's rant about the Dodgers interest and judge. Well, good's too late now. The Yankees are out.

See you later, New York. How about this report in MLB.com that says the Dodgers, the Dodgers might be interested in Aaron Judge and then put Wookiee Betts at second base. Here's a franchise that gave $180 million to Freeman, that gave Betts $400 million.

They have more money than God. They haven't won since 88 in a 162 game schedule and now they want to bring Judge in to play right field. The Dodgers did absolutely nothing offensively against San Diego where they lost and Judge, by the way, wasn't exactly Ruth and Garrett against the Guardians and the Astros.

But now the Dodgers who don't spend enough money, got to spend another $40 million on up with the Dodgers going out there and poking all these players from other organizations. Whoa. Does Russo remember where he made his bones? Oh, in New York. What? Oh, talking about the Yankees. Even this current Yankee team.

Yeah. Oh, Carlos Stanton, stolen from the Miami Marlins. Bought off them, yeah. Josh Donaldson, I think former MVP, who's just been everywhere, right? Donaldson's been like six teams, so they just bought him Anthony Rizzo, pilfered from the Chicago Cubs. Now the Yankees give up something. Those were trades, but it ain't like the Yankees groomed Rizzo or Donaldson or Stanton or Garrett Cole who left the Astros to come to the Yankees for more than $30 million a year.

That rant was hysterical to me. By the way, the Dodgers, among all of the teams that might have interest in Aaron Judge, the Dodgers are the team that primarily has built from within. Yes, they have gone out and bought some big time players. By the way, Mookie Betts came up as a second baseman, so if Betts goes back to play second, I got no problem with it. He was a second baseman who played the outfield because Dustin, I think it was, was it Dustin Bedroy at the time?

Bedroy. Whoever it was, was ahead of him at second base, and then Betts became a great outfielder, so why not just keep him there, plus he was killing it and winning MVPs. Here's the problem with Aaron Judge.

He will be 31 the first month of next year. $500 million is not... I guess $500 million could happen, but I don't think $500 million is happening.

I'm not even sure $400 million is happening. Mike Trout got that deal when he was still in his 20s, 12 years didn't seem crazy. Seems kind of crazy, but by the way, the deal ends in 30, so that deal has been here for a while, the 12-year deal. It ends in 2030, a 10-year deal for Judge at age 31, basically, in his 31-year old season, isn't going to end until 33. He'll be 43 years old in the final year of that deal, 41 years old in the final year of that deal. I guess it could, but even then, we're still talking about I think a ceiling of $450 million. I think more likely it's an eight-year deal, and the average value right around 45, maybe a little higher, 47, but the Yankees screwed up by lowballing them.

I said it at the time, I'll say it again. Don't lowball your stars unless you know they're going to accept it. That's where the Braves are the biggest winner. The Braves lowball everybody, but they accept it. Good for them. This is the Adam Gold Show.