A pair of basketball shoes worn by legendary basketball player Michael Jordan sold for $2.2 million (about 2.9 billion won), making them the ‘world’s most expensive sneakers’.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 11th (local time) that a pair of Nike Air Jordan XIII models worn by Jordan in the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $2.2 million at Sotheby’s online auction. The net winning bid price excluding fees is $1.8 million.먹튀검증
Although it fell short of the highest bid ($4 million) expected by Sotheby’s, the transaction broke the record for the highest price at a sneaker auction. The previous record was $1.8 million when a prototype of the Nike Air Yeezy 1 was sold in 2021. The sneakers were released by hip-hop star Kanye West in collaboration with Nike, and were worn at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
The basketball shoes that won the auction this time were worn by Jordan in the second half of the 1998 NBA Finals while he was a member of the Chicago Bulls, signed, and given as a gift to a ball boy. In this game, Jordan scored 37 points to lead the team’s victory, and the winning period was re-examined in 2020 by Netflix’s release of the documentary ‘The Last Dance’. This is the first time the basketball shoes have been sold at auction, and the identity of the ball boy who received the shoes has not been released.
Items related to Jordan are highly popular at several auctions. At a Sotheby’s auction in 2021, a pair of Nike basketball shoes worn in 1984, when Jordan debuted in the NBA, sold for $1.472 million. At last year’s Sotheby’s auction, the jersey Jordan wore in Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $10.1 million. This is the most expensive collectible item ever worn by a player at a sports event.