A road jersey Michael Jordan wore during Game 2 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold privately for $14 million, Hunt Auctions announced Monday. The Michael Jordan 1998 Finals jersey sale now stands as the highest price ever paid for a piece of basketball memorabilia, according to the Pennsylvania-based auction house.
The buyer, Miami real estate investor Ron Firman, purchased the jersey Jordan wore on June 5, 1998, when he and the Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz to even that Finals series at one game apiece. Chicago went on to win the series in six games, closing out the sixth and final championship of Jordan’s Hall of Fame career.
The Details Of The Sale
Hunt Auctions facilitated the transaction and confirmed the $14 million figure in a news release. The jersey had been purchased from the Bulls by a private collector in 2003 and changed hands only once in the years since, keeping it within a limited chain of custody until Firman’s purchase.
“Michael Jordan was an incredibly talented player who is admired around the world. I’m very excited about the purchase,” Firman said in the release distributed by Hunt Auctions.
David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions, framed the sale as a sign of where Jordan memorabilia now sits in the broader collectibles world. “While Michael Jordan’s importance within the sports memorabilia marketplace has long been established it has now escalated to an elite asset class more typically reserved for iconic works of art,” Hunt said. “We are very pleased to have been able to facilitate this historic sale which serves as another benchmark for our industry.”
What It Means For The Memorabilia Market
The $14 million sale tops every previous transaction for basketball memorabilia, but it still falls short of the record for any game-worn jersey across sports. That mark belongs to Babe Ruth, whose jersey from the 1932 World Series sold for $24.12 million in 2024.
Jordan’s 1998 Finals run has produced an escalating string of high-value sales. A jersey from Game 1 of that same series sold at auction for about $10.1 million in 2022. Just a month before Firman’s purchase, a jersey from Game 3 of the 1998 Finals went for roughly $12.3 million. Each sale has pushed the ceiling higher for artifacts tied to that championship run, which also became the subject of the 10-episode documentary “The Last Dance” in 2020.
Jordan memorabilia beyond jerseys has also commanded record prices. In 2023, Sotheby’s sold a pair of Air Jordan sneakers Jordan wore in Game 2 against the Jazz for $2.2 million, a figure described at the time as a world record for the most valuable sneakers ever sold.
Context Behind The Rising Prices
The pattern across these sales shows collectors placing increasing value on artifacts directly tied to Jordan’s final championship with the Bulls. Three separate jerseys from that same six-game series against the Jazz have now sold for a combined total well above $36 million, with each sale occurring within the past four years.
Hunt’s comparison of Jordan memorabilia to fine art reflects the private, negotiated nature of this particular deal rather than a traditional auction setting, a structure more commonly associated with high-value art transactions than sports collectibles.
What’s Next
No further sales from the 1998 Finals jersey collection have been announced. Hunt Auctions did not disclose whether additional game-worn items from that series remain in private hands or could come to market. The record set by the Michael Jordan 1998 Finals jersey sale now serves as the new benchmark figure for basketball collectibles going forward.
For more on Jordan’s recent public activity, Michael Jordan’s $10 million donation to UNC drew attention just days before this sale was announced.
Don't stop here
Every Score. Every Story. One Home.
Breaking sports, entertainment and news from across the Total Apex network, updated all day.
Get the Full Story →
