Everything
Michael Jordan will go down as arguably the greatest professional athlete of all time. In terms of what he was able to achieve in his career in the NBA – let alone in sports – Jordan was a different beast. He was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player five times. He has ten scoring titles. And of course, he has six championship titles to his name, all of which he was the finals MVP every time.
So, when MJ’s iconic number 23 Chicago Bulls jersey from the 1998 finals-winning season goes up for auction, as any respecting sports collected would know, you’re going to do everything you can to get your hands on this piece of history.
That’s the general sentiment most sports fanatics would feel… until they realise how much that jersey is likely to fetch. Famous auction house ‘Sotheby’s‘ is set to auction off the Chicago Bulls jersey that Michael Jordan wore during Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals, and it’s expected to fetch anywhere between US $3 to $5 million – the highest auction estimate for any Jordan jersey.
Adding to its overall value, the jersey was also featured on the cover of the June 1998 issue of Sports Illustrated.
Before the sporting collectible is open for sale – bidding will start on September 6 and close on September 14 – the jersey will be on public display in Monterey, California for three days for fans to catch a glimpse before it’s, well, gone – set to be hung up in some lucky sporting nut’s mancave or other.
Along with this piece of Jordan history, other sporting memorabilia will be up for grabs, including items belonging to tennis great Roger Federer, ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, and boxer Muhammad Ali.
In other news of iconic sporting jerseys fetching ridiculous sums of money, in May, Sotheby’s sold the late Diego Maradona’s 1986 World Cup shirt for a cool US$9.3 million, which will most likely go down as the world’s most valuable piece of sports memorabilia ever to be sold at auction.
While Jordan’s jersey will likely fall well below that figure, you never know what somebody is willing to pay…
