Jordan's 'Last Dance' Game 3 Jersey Sells for Record $12.26 Million
Michael Jordan's red Chicago Bulls jersey from Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $12.26 million on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. That is the most ever paid for a piece of Jordan memorabilia. Reuters reported the $12.26 million figure, with the BBC rounding the total to $12.3 million (£9.3 million).
The jersey dates to Jordan's last season with Chicago, the run later nicknamed the "Last Dance." The NBA Finals is the league's championship series. Chicago won that 1998 series 4-2, giving Jordan his sixth and final NBA championship.
He was named Finals Most Valuable Player in all six of his title series. That award goes to the best player in the championship round. No detail carries more weight with collectors than a Finals-worn shirt tied to a title.
Entrepreneur Ryan Gough put the Game 3 jersey up for sale through Joopiter, the digital auction house from musician Pharrell Williams. Joopiter had estimated the jersey at $10 million to $15 million (£7.5 million to £11.3 million). It cleared the low end with room to spare.
The final price included the buyer's premium, the extra fee added on top of the winning bid. Sportico confirmed the premium was part of the $12.3 million total. That structure is standard at major auctions.
The sale beats the previous Jordan record of $10.091 million for his jersey from Game 1 of the same 1998 Finals. That shirt sold in 2022. Back then, it eclipsed $3.7 million spent that May on Kobe Bryant memorabilia, which shows how fast the top of this market has moved.
Basketball collectibles keep climbing. Cooper Flagg's NBA Debut Patch card recently sold for $8.04 million, a record for a card of its type. Yet Jordan's Game 3 jersey still sits well below the all-sports record for game-worn memorabilia.
That mark belongs to Babe Ruth's "called the shot" jersey from the 1932 World Series, baseball's championship series. It sold for $24.1 million (£18.2 million) in 2024. The gap is almost $12 million.
What makes this stand out is the story stitched into the shirt. Finals jerseys from a championship run rarely reach public sale. A Bulls jersey from the closing act of Jordan's Chicago career brings that moment back into view, and bidders responded.
