Michael Jordan‘s game-worn jersey from Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals will be sold through auction house Joopiter this fall.
In this jersey, Jordan scored a game-high 24 points to give the Chicago Bulls a 2-1 series lead in Game 3 and then went on to win the sixth and final NBA championship of his career.
This jersey is also significant because it was part of “The Last Dance” season for the Chicago Bulls dynasty of the 1990s.
“I think with an object at this level of importance, emotion is key,” Joopiter’s global head of sales, Caitlin Donovan said, per The Athletic. “We want this to appeal to the potential buyer at a great level, at a record-breaking price … but I also think it’s important to Joopiter that a lot of the storytelling around sports goes to the fans and to the people that not only love Michael Jordan, love the Bulls, love ‘The Last Dance,’ but kind of know where they were in that time.
“Oftentimes the moment had a pretty exceptional impact on their lives, so opening it up to the public for us was really important for this object.”
Jordan’s Jersey Is More Rare Than Current Superstars
The jersey could set a new sales record for game-worn memorabilia this fall. Jordan’s “Last Dance” jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals currently holds that record after selling for $10.1 million in 2022.
One reason Jordan’s jerseys have sold for record-breaking prices is because the NBA did not have a league-wide game-worn tracking program. Therefore, teams would routinely wash and re-wear their jerseys, whereas today’s athletes regularly wear new jerseys.
“Jordan remains a very, very, very rare relic, certainly in comparison to the GOATs of today — the LeBrons, the Stephen Currys, because it was a different era,” MeiGray founder Barry Meisel said, per The Athletic. “There were no game-worn jersey programs. Teams weren’t putting a jersey on a player’s back every game or every couple of games.”