Michael Jordan's game-worn jersey from Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals just sold through Joopiter for an astronomical $12,260,000. It set a new world auction record for an NBA game-worn jersey.
Jordan wore the white home jersey during Chicago's 96-54 blowout win over the Utah Jazz, part of a series the Bulls eventually won 4-2 for Jordan's 6th and final championship. He dropped 24 points in that specific game, helping give the Bulls a 2-1 series lead.
The jersey came with a MeiGray photomatching certificate along with documented provenance dating back to a previous private collector. Joopiter, the auction house founded by Pharrell Williams, listed the piece under a lot titled "Driven to Greatness."
Ahead of the sale, Joopiter had estimated the jersey would fetch somewhere between $10 million and $15 million. The final price landed within that range, confirming just how much demand existed for a piece this significant.
This marks the only publicly known white jersey from that entire 1998 Finals run to ever surface for sale, adding to its rarity beyond just the price tag.
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This auction breaks the previous record set by Jordan's Game 1 jersey from that same 1998 Finals series, which sold for $10.1 million back in 2022 through Sotheby's. Both jerseys came from Jordan's final season with the Bulls, "The Last Dance."
Game-worn Jordan gear continues to generate massive prices, largely because the NBA had no league-wide tracking program at the time. Teams routinely washed and reused jerseys, making documented, single-game pieces like this one extremely rare compared to modern athlete memorabilia.
That scarcity is part of why prices keep climbing every time a new Jordan piece hits the block. Today's athletes often have jerseys swapped out after nearly every game, making a true 1-of-1 almost impossible to find outside of Jordan's era.
Jordan's items have consistently set the bar for sports memorabilia sales overall, regardless of era or sport. This latest result only reinforces just how much collectors are still willing to pay for a tangible piece of his legacy.
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Source: www.hotnewhiphop.com
