Michael Jordan’s Game 3 jersey from the 1998 NBA Finals is headed to auction, and the man who owns it believes it could do something no game-worn jersey has ever done before: sell for $100 million.
The jersey will be offered beginning September 15 through Pharrell Williams’ Joopiter auction house, according to sports investor and actor Rob Gough, who currently has the piece. Gough told the Angela Barbuti of the New York Post that he sees the jersey as a market-changer.
“I think this will be the first jersey to hit $100 million. It’s not like I knew where it was or it was easy to find … This person led to this person, which led to the other person. Unfortunately, I never got to the actual owner of the jersey; I got to a middleman who probably made millions of dollars.”
If that figure is even close, it would blow past the current record for a game-worn jersey. That mark belongs to Jordan’s Game 1 jersey from the same 1998 Finals, which sold for $10.1 million in 2022.
What gives this one extra weight, in Gough’s view, is the game itself. Jordan wore it in Game 3 against the Utah Jazz, when the Bulls rolled to a 96-54 win - a 42-point margin that still stands as the largest in NBA Finals history. Jordan finished with 24 points, three rebounds, two assists, two steals, and one block as Chicago grabbed a 2-1 lead in the series.
The jersey comes from the final chapter of Jordan’s run with the Bulls, the famed Last Dance season. Chicago went on to beat Utah in six games, with Jordan hitting the championship-winning jumper over Bryon Russell in Game 6. He was named NBA Finals MVP after averaging 33.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in the series.
Gough said landing the jersey took what he described as a wild treasure hunt. He bought it through an intermediary, but because of an NDA, he never learned who the original owner was.
For two years, he kept the jersey on display in his Puerto Rico home before eventually moving it into a vault.
Gough is no stranger to the top end of the collectibles world. He bought a rare 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card for $5.2 million and says he later sold it for an eight-figure sum. His collection also includes jerseys tied to Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, Tom Brady, and Wayne Gretzky.
Even with that company, this Jordan piece sits in a different stratosphere. A sale anywhere near $100 million would put it at almost 10 times the current basketball jersey record and give it a place in a class of its own.
Whether the market gets there is the big question. But with Jordan’s name, the Last Dance backdrop, and a Finals blowout that still lives in the record book, this auction is set up to be one of the most closely watched in sports memorabilia.
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