The shirt Jordan wore in game three of his final championship run with the Chicago Bulls is now the most expensive piece of game-worn Jordan memorabilia ever sold.
A jersey worn by basketball great Michael Jordan during his final season with the Chicago Bulls has sold for $12.3 million, about
double what many collectors would have imagined a decade ago and a new record for game-worn Jordan memorabilia. In British currency, the price works out at roughly \u00a39.3 million.
The sale was reported by MyJoyOnline.
Why this shirt
Jordan wore the jersey in game three of the 1998 NBA Finals \u2014 part of the season later made famous worldwide by the documentary series "The Last Dance". The Bulls won that series 4-2, handing Jordan his sixth and final NBA championship. He was named Most Valuable Player in all six of the Finals he won.
That combination of history and timing is what pushed the price up. The previous record for a Jordan item was $10.1 million (about \u00a37.6 million), paid for the jersey he wore in game one of the same 1998 Finals.
Who sold it, and where
The jersey was put up for sale by entrepreneur Ryan Gough. It went under the hammer at Joopiter, the digital auction house founded by American musician and producer Pharrell Williams.
Joopiter had estimated the shirt would fetch between $10 million and $15 million, so the final figure landed inside the expected range. In its auction listing, the house described the jersey as marking "the culmination of an era that transformed basketball into a global cultural phenomenon".
Another Jordan item in the same sale also performed strongly. His 1997 Ferrari 550 Maranello sold for $2.7 million (around \u00a32 million) \u2014 four times the previous auction record for that model of car.
Still not the biggest
For all the money involved, the Jordan jersey is not the most expensive piece of game-worn sports clothing ever sold. That record belongs to baseball legend Babe Ruth, whose jersey from the 1932 World Series \u2014 the game in which he is said to have "called the shot" by pointing to where he would hit the ball \u2014 sold for $24.1 million (about \u00a318.2 million) in 2024.
The wider picture
Sports memorabilia has grown into a serious investment market, especially in the United States, where auction houses now treat jerseys, boots and signed equipment in the same way art dealers treat paintings. For Ghanaians following sport from the US, the Jordan sale is another sign of how deeply the 1990s Bulls era remains embedded in American popular culture.
Jordan himself returned to the court after the 1998 title, playing two more seasons with the Washington Wizards between 2001 and 2003. But it is the Bulls years, and that sixth ring, that continue to set the prices.
