NBA legend Michael Jordan’s jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold for £8.8 million at auction to come the most expensive piece of game-worn sports memorabilia in history.
Jordan’s iconic Chicago Bulls jersey - with his famous no.23 emblazoned across it - was from his sixth and final NBA championship run. The Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz 4-2 in the Finals, but the Jazz took Game 1 with a 88-85 win.
It proved to be Jordan’s final season with the Bulls and the jersey has been put up for sale with Sotheby’s online auction. On Thursday, the jersey sold for a record £8.8m.
The previous record was from earlier this year, when Argentine football icon Diego Maradona’s jersey from the 1986 World Cup quarter-final against England was sold for £8.2m. The shirt - which the Argentine wore as he scored an infamous brace with ‘The Hand of God’ goal - was sold at an auction in May 2022.
Maradona also scored the goal dubbed the ‘Goal of the Century’ as he dribbled past six England players before rounding Peter Shilton and rolling the ball into the net. The shirt was sold by former Nottingham Forest defender Steve Hodge, who had swapped jerseys with Maradona at full-time in the match, and it had resided in Manchester’s National Football Museum for the last 20 years but was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in May.
After Jordan’s jersey secured the record, Sotheby’s Head of Streetwear and Modern Collectables Brahm Wachter said: “In the weeks since we announced the auction, there's been palpable excitement from not only sports fans, but collectors alike who are eager to own a rarefied piece of history.
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“Yet again, today's record-breaking result... solidifies Michael Jordan as the undisputed G.O.A.T, proving his name and incomparable legacy is just as relevant as it was nearly 25 years ago.”
Jordan’s jersey comfortably eclipsed the £3.3m spent in May on a Los Angeles Lakers jersey worn by Kobe Bryant in his rookie year, which was the previous record for a basketball jersey at auction. It also topped the record for any Jordan sports memorabilia item after his autographed relic card from 1997-1998 sold for £2.4m.
The jersey attracted a total of 20 lucrative bids after it came from the ‘Last Dance’ season. The Netflix documentary - released in 2020 - chronicled Jordan and the Bulls as they attempted to claim their sixth championship in eight years, doing so as they defeated the Jazz in six games.
