A Chicago Bulls jersey sold for a stunning $10.1 million at a Sotheby's auction—and it's not even from a game the team won. Michael Jordan wore the jersey in the first game of the 1998 NBA Finals, which were chronicled in The Last Dance TV series, CNBC reports. The Bulls lost the first game against the Utah Jazz, despite Jordan scoring 33 points, but they went on to win the series 4-2, a sixth and final NBA championship for Jordan, who also won his sixth NBA Finals MVP.
The away jersey sold for double Sotheby's estimate. It's the most expensive game jersey ever sold, breaking the $9.3 million record set in May with the sale of Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" jersey, ESPN reports. It's also the second-most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever sold, surpassed only by a Mickey Mantle baseball card that sold for $12.6 million less than three weeks ago. The previous record for an NBA jersey was the $3.69 million paid at auction in May last year for a Kobe Bryant jersey from his 1996-97 rookie season with the Lakers.
Brahm Wachter of Sotheby's said there was "palpable excitement" from sports fans and collectors after the auction was announced weeks ago. "The season itself is his 'magnum opus' as an athlete, and a testament to him as a champion and competitor," Wachter said, per ESPN. "Finals jerseys from Jordan are remarkably scant," he said, and those from the 1998 finals "are arguably the most coveted of them all." (More Michael Jordan stories.)
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