Chicago, June 1998. Michael Jordan steps onto the court for Game Two of the NBA Finals wearing a red Bulls jersey that, decades later, will be worth more than most people's lifetime earnings. That night he scores 37 points, the Bulls edge toward their sixth championship, and Jordan is named Finals MVP for the sixth time. Nobody courtside could have guessed that the shirt on his back would one day sell for $14m.

That sale has just happened. Miami real estate investor Ron Firman bought the autographed jersey in a private deal brokered by Hunt Auctions, smashing the previous basketball-memorabilia record. That record, set barely two weeks earlier, belonged to a different Jordan jersey from Game Three of the same series, which fetched $12.3m despite carrying no signature.

Before that, the high-water mark was a 2007-08 trading card featuring both Jordan and Kobe Bryant, which sold for $12.9m. Each record has fallen within months of the last, suggesting a market that is still finding its ceiling. Only one sports item has ever commanded a higher price: the jersey Babe Ruth wore in 1932 when he allegedly "called his shot" during the World Series in Chicago, auctioned in 2024 for $24.

1m. That Ruth sits atop the list, with Jordan now his closest rival, says something about how Americans assign value to sporting mythology — and how that mythology now travels well beyond American borders, into salerooms watched by bidders from Shanghai to São Paulo. David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions, framed the sale as a turning point rather than a one-off.