A pair of sneakers that Michael Jordan wore in a match of the famous season “The Last Dance” in 1998, was sold for US $ 2.2 million in an online auction, a record for this type of sporting goods, announced Tuesday the Sotheby’s auction house.
It is about the air jordan 13which the basketball star wore in the second game of the 1998 NBA Final of the famous season of “The Last Dance”, reports the auction house, which ensures that it is one of the “most significant items of his famous career and his last year with the Chicago Bulls.
The sale has highlighted the appeal of the award-winning player to collectors and investors around the world. Last September, Sotheby’s sold a T-shirt that Jordan he wore in the first game of that 1998 final for $10.1 million, setting a world record for any sporting item worn in a match.
Until then, the record was held by the shirt worn by the captain of the Argentine team Diego Maradona during the 1986 World Cup, for which US$ 9.3 million was paid a few months earlier, in May 2022, followed by another from the basketball legend Kobe Bryant awarded $5.8 million last February.
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Jordan wore these black sneakers with red motifs in the second part of the match of the historic final of a season that established him as the best basketball player of all time and that has gone down in history as “The Last Dance”, largely partly due to the hit ESPN and Netflix documentary of the same name.
Released in 2020, it narrated the efforts of Jordan’s Chicago Bulls to win the sixth NBA title in the 1997-1998 season.
“Most Loved Period”
For the auction house it is “perhaps the most beloved period of Jordanian folklore“since it reached”the height of his popularity and power while overcoming major internal divisions that were fracturing the Chicago Bulls team dynamic of the late 1990s″.
The players were aware that the roster would be disbanded at the end of the season and they knew it was their last chance to win the Bulls’ sixth championship of the decade, he recalls.
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After losing the first game, in the second Jordan scored 37 points that gave the Bulls victory against the Utah Jazz (93-88).
The sale, which began on April 3, coincides with the premiere of the movie “Air,” which chronicles Nike’s rise in the field of sports shoes through its association with Michael Jordan in the mid-’80s and the genesis of the famous Air Jordan shoes.
Since Sotheby’s inaugurated the auctions of these items in 2019, with the sale of a pair of Nike Waffles for $437,500 –which at that time was an auction record–, the auction house owned by the French-Israeli telecommunications magnate Patrick Drahi, bets on the streetwear market and modern collectibles.
Last year he organized the online sale of 200 pairs of Louis Vuitton and Nike Air Force 1s designed by Virgil Abloh before his death, fetching $25 million.
Source: AFP
Source: Gestion
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
