A sneaker collection that is a superstar Michael Jordan The uniform he wore while he and the Chicago Bulls won six NBA championships sold for $8 million at auction, setting a new record for game-worn sneakers, Sotheby’s said.
Six Air Jordan shoes – one each from the final games of the 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998 championship streaks – were sold on Friday. Sotheby’s called it the “Dynasty Collection”.
“Serving as both a reminder of Michael Jordan’s lasting impact on the world and a tangible expression of his acknowledged legendary status, his importance is further confirmed by this monumental result,” said Brahm Wachter of Sotheby’s. Wachter oversees contemporary collections for the auction house.
Sotheby’s did not identify the buyer, describing the seller only as a “private American collector” who acquired it from Bulls’ longtime manager.
According to Sotheby’s, Jordan first gave a sneaker to an executive after the championship game in 1991 and has since continued the tradition. The auction lot included photos of Jordan wearing a single shoe while celebrating his victories in 1992, 1993, 1996 and 1998.
A five-time league MVP and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Jordan was such a unique player that in 1992 NBA commissioner David Stern called him “the standard by which basketball excellence is measured.” NBA He renamed the MVP trophy for Jordan in 2022.
He helped too shake up the athletic shoe industry and fuel sneaker culture by teaming up with Nike to create Air Jordans in the mid-1980s.
The pair he wore in Game 2 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $2.2 million through Sotheby’s last April, a record for a pair of sneakers. The highest auction price of any Jordan memorabilia was $10.1 million for his Game 1 jersey, according to Sotheby’s, which sold it in 2022.
Just one An unused ticket to Jordan’s 1984 debut with the Bulls sold through Heritage Auctions in 2022 for $468,000 – 55,000 times its face value.