Is the Wii the key to Ichiro’s $100 million deal?

Those of you baseball fans know of the huge deal the Mariners are about the announce with Ichiro. The massive 5 year, $100 million contract has been pretty controversial since many people don’t believe a leadoff hitter is worth that much money. I won’t get into baseball money talk, because I don’t think any person needs that much money to play a game, but the Mariners basically need Ichiro on their team.

So how did the Nintendo-owned Mariners afford to splurge so much on a player like Ichiro? Jim Rome from ESPN believes that the Wii’s success might be the reason behind the huge contract:

“Why is anyone surprised that the Nintendo corporation is keeping him? He is the best and most marketable player in Japan. Nintendo is making plenty of money on the Wii, so unless they get taken down by lawsuits by some fat kid tearing his pec trying to play tennis in front of his tv on the Wii- Nintendo is going to be just fine.”

Ah yes, even ESPN is getting in on the Wii madness. You just can’t escape Nintendo these days- even as I sit here going through E3 updates with ESPN in the background.