Michael Jordan ‘Last Dance’ jersey sets record with $10.1 million sale originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
It’s been 24 years since Michael Jordan’s “Last Dance” with the Chicago Bulls, but the basketball legend is still breaking records.
A game-worn jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $10.091 million at auction house Sotheby’s on Thursday. The eight-figure price tag makes it the most expensive piece of game-worn sports memorabilia of all time, surpassing Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God’ jersey from the 1986 World Cup, which sold for $9.28 million in May.
Sotheby’s originally listed a predicted sale price between $3 million and $5 million for the Jordan jersey. The previous highest sale for a basketball jersey was $3.69 million for one that Kobe Bryant wore during his rookie 1996-97 season.
The 1997-98 season was an unforgettable one for Jordan and the Bulls. MJ won his fifth league MVP award and led the Bulls to their sixth championship in eight years in his final season with the franchise.
Game 1 of the 1998 was not one of the high points from that season, however. Jordan logged over 45 minutes and scored 33 points, but the Utah Jazz jumped out to a 1-0 series lead with an 88-85 overtime win. Chicago bounced back to win the series, capping things off in Game 6 behind a 45-point outing from Jordan.
“The season itself is his ‘magnum opus’ as an athlete, and a testament to him as a champion and competitor,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of streetwear and modern collectables, said in a statement, via ESPN. “Finals jerseys from Jordan are remarkably scant and the [1998] Finals are arguably the most coveted of them all.”
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This is the second time in less than a month that someone has dished out over $10 million for a piece of sports history. In late August, a mint condition 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle became the most expensive baseball card – or sports memorabilia of any kind – when it sold for $12.6 million.
On top of the jersey itself, the winning bidder will receive a graded copy of the June 1998 Sports Illustrated issue, which sees Jordan wearing the jersey.
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