Michael Jordan’s game-worn jersey from Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $12.26m (about £9m) at Joopiter on Tuesday, the most ever paid at auction for a piece of Jordan memorabilia and a record for any basketball jersey. It got there on one bid.
The white mesh Bulls No. 23, worn on 7 June 1998 during the run that became The Last Dance, closed at a $10m hammer price, with buyer’s fees of $2.26m taking the final figure past the $10.1m paid for Jordan’s Game 1 jersey from the same series at Sotheby’s in September 2022. Joopiter, the digital-first auction house founded by Pharrell Williams, had guided the lot at $10m to $15m. The seller was the collector and entrepreneur Rob Gough, who bought the jersey in 2023 and has said only that he paid “a lot”.
A record set without a bidding war
The mechanics of the sale are as notable as the number. The jersey sold on an irrevocable bid — a binding pre-auction commitment to buy at an agreed price if nobody goes higher — and no competing bid was entered before the lot closed. The guarantee delivered the record; the open market never tested it.
That has drawn criticism within the hobby, where irrevocable bids are increasingly common on eight-figure lots and increasingly contested. Supporters argue they de-risk consignments that would otherwise never reach the block, giving sellers a floor and the market a public price. Critics counter that a headline price reached without a single counter-bid is a negotiated transaction wearing an auction’s clothes, and that using such results as comparables inflates valuations across the category.
Gough’s own expectations had been considerably louder. In the run-up he floated numbers as high as $100m, framing the jersey as a cultural asset rather than a sports collectible. The final result landed inside the auction house’s estimate but well short of his public ambition. He has since moved on to other ventures, buying the Miami-based World Jai Alai League in August.
The night Utah scored 54
The provenance is the asset. Jordan wore the shirt at the United Center as Chicago beat Utah 96-54 to take a 2-1 lead in the series — the most lopsided game in NBA Finals history. The 42-point margin still stands, and the Jazz’s 54 points remain the fewest any team has scored in a Finals game. Utah managed 23 points in the first half and shot 30% for the night.
Jordan’s own line was efficient rather than spectacular: 24 points on 7-of-14 shooting, 10 of 11 from the free-throw line, with a steal and a block. The Bulls closed the series in six, sealing a sixth championship in eight seasons and Jordan’s last with Chicago. Phil Jackson left that summer, Scottie Pippen was traded, Dennis Rodman departed, and the dynasty was dismantled.
Game-worn jerseys from that specific postseason are the most tightly held Jordan items in existence, and photo-matching — the frame-by-frame comparison of stitching, lettering and wear patterns against broadcast and still images — has made them tradeable at a scale that was impossible a decade ago. Of the handful of 1998 Finals Jordan jerseys in private hands, two now account for the top two prices ever paid for basketball apparel.
What the price says about the market
The sale extends a decade-long re-rating of elite sports memorabilia, where supply is fixed and the buyer pool has broadened from collectors to investors and funds. For context, the current ceiling across all sports:
- Babe Ruth’s 1932 “Called Shot” jersey — $24.12m, August 2024
- 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card — $12.6m, August 2022
- Jordan’s 1998 Finals Game 3 jersey — $12.26m, September 2026
- Jordan’s 1998 Finals Game 1 jersey — $10.1m, September 2022
Jordan is now the only athlete with two items above $10m, and the only basketball figure anywhere near the top of the list. That concentration is the risk as much as the proof: the market for 1990s Bulls material rests heavily on one player’s scarcity and one documentary’s reach.
The immediate consequence is a repricing of everything adjacent. Owners of Jordan’s 1996 and 1997 Finals jerseys, his sneakers and his rookie-era cards now have a fresh benchmark, and more consignments will follow while the number is warm. Whether the next seller can find a buyer without a guarantee attached is the better test of what $12.26m actually proved.
Sources: [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/50069241/michael-jordan-last-dance-game-3-1998-nba-finals-game-worn-jersey-auction-record), [Sports Collectors Daily](https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/michael-jordans-1998-finals-game-3-jersey-sells-for-record-12-26-million/), [Chicago Sun-Times](https://chicago.suntimes.com/bulls/2026/09/30/michael-jordans-last-dance-jersey-sells-for-record-12-26-million), [Yahoo Sports (Gough)](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/rob-gough-michael-jordan-jersey-114954911.html), [Basketball Reference box score](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199806070CHI.html), [Sportico memorabilia records](https://www.sportico.com/feature/most-expensive-sports-memorabilia-1234762143/)
One note: the sale price is **$12.26m**, not $12.3m as your brief had it — I used the exact figure in the body, which still rounds to the £9m in your headline.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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