Be like Mike: Michael Jordan NBA Finals jersey sells for world-record price at auction

Michael Jordan is known as the best NBA player of all time, and now his jersey is the best of all time too.

A record-setting auction has enshrined the basketball jersey into the collectible market's rafters, after a memorabilia enthusiast paid millions to get his hands on it.

'One of the finest examples of any game-worn jersey I have ever seen.'

On Monday, Hunt Auctions announced a private treaty sale for a Michael Jordan game-worn Chicago Bulls jersey from the 1998 NBA Finals.

Marketed as the Game 2 jersey — where the Bulls beat the Utah Jazz 93-88 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah — Jordan's red jerseys from Games 1, 2, and 6 of the finals have become some of the most highly coveted uniforms in basketball history.

As one of the "holy grails" of sports, the Game 2 jersey sold for a whopping price of $14 million. The item is a world record for any piece of basketball merch, Hunt Auctions said, and was the second-highest price paid for a game-used jersey from any sport.

According to Reuters, the Jordan jersey is second only to Babe Ruth's 1932 World Series uniform when he famously called his shot. That sold for a reported $24.12 million in 2024.

For basketball, Jordan is only outdoing himself. The latest auction beat out his own record set in September, which was for a white jersey worn in Game 3 of the same 1998 NBA Finals. That jersey sold for $12.26 million, CBS Chicago reported.

Before that, a September 2022 auction saw his Game 1 red jersey go for $10.091 million, which then surpassed soccer legend Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" jersey from the 1986 World Cup that sold for $9.28 million.

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Outside of Jordan, Kobe Bryant has the next most valuable NBA jersey at $7 million, which sold in 2025.

According to auctioneers, the record-setting Jordan jersey was originally purchased directly from the Chicago Bulls by a collector and comes with a 2003 letter from Chicago Bulls Director of Community Relations Jeff Schultz.

"It is my opinion that this jersey is one of the finest examples of any game-worn jersey I have ever seen in my 15+ years of managing the Chicago Bulls memorabilia," Schultz wrote.

The jersey has what was described as a "succinct" chain of custody, having changed hands only once since it was purchased from the team. It was also autographed by Jordan himself through a signing authentication by Upper Deck.

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JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images

Collector Ron Firman, originally from Rye, New York, thanked the auction house and called Jordan "an incredibly talented player who is admired around the world."

Hunt Auctions' David Hunt remarked that Jordan and Ruth items are by far the most coveted in the collector's market for American sports.

"The record-setting price achieved for the related Michael Jordan jersey is yet another corroborative result as to the significance of Jordan within the industry and popular culture," Hunt said.

Hunt added that Jordan memorabilia has been elevated to the status of the "elite asset class more typically reserved for iconic works of art."

The 1998 NBA Finals are considered Jordan's "Last Dance" and serve as the backdrop for his iconic Netflix series that shares the same name.

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