Unbelievable! Jordan's shirt is worth more than the transfer fees of most footballers
A staggering price for a single shirt
Football clubs hand over tens of millions for stars who can change a game. Michael Jordan has gone one better in a different market altogether, after a shirt from his final season with the Chicago Bulls sold for 14 million dollars, making it the most expensive piece of basketball memorabilia in history and worth more than the market value of plenty of footballers.
The shirt comes from the 1997-1998 campaign, known as "The Last Dance", and Jordan wore it in Game 2 of the 1998 NBA Finals. His personal signature on it only boosted its historical value among collectors.
Jordan put up 37 points that night to finish as the game's top scorer, then led the Bulls to a 4-2 series win over the Utah Jazz for his sixth and final NBA title.
All six of those championships brought him the Finals MVP award, leaving that season as one of the standout chapters of an extraordinary career.
Hunt Auctions arranged the private deal that sealed the 14 million dollar sale. The buyer was Ron Ferman, a real estate investor based in Miami.
That figure broke the previous basketball record, held by a sports card featuring images of Jordan and Kobe Bryant from the 2007-2008 season, which went for 12.9 million dollars last year.
Only two weeks earlier, another Jordan shirt, worn in Game 3 of the 1998 Finals, had fetched 12.3 million dollars. The Game 2 shirt beat it on historical value and that signature.
Across sports memorabilia as a whole, Jordan still sits behind baseball legend Babe Ruth. The shirt tied to Ruth's famous "Called Shot" at the 1932 World Series sold for 24.1 million dollars in 2024 and remains the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever sold at auction.
David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions, said Jordan's standing in the memorabilia market has moved beyond its traditional limits and into the category of rare, elite assets that resemble iconic works of art. It says plenty about what items linked to sporting legends are now worth.
