Sotheby’s auction house sold a jersey of basketball legend Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in 2020, on Thursday for $5.8 million, the third-highest price for a sports jersey after Michael’s. Jordan and Diego Maradona.
At 5.8 million dollars, Sotheby’s announced after a sale that ended online Thursday in New York, the price exceeds 3.7 million dollars, in 2021, for a jersey of the Los Angeles Lakers star with five titles NBA and two Olympic gold medals.
“This jersey is an icon rarely seen in sporting goods; Kobe (Bryant) wore it 25 times during the 2007-2008 NBA season,” where he was named regular player of the season, said Brahm Wachter, who heads the NBA. streetwear and modern collectibles department at Sotheby’s.
Record sporting goods auction in 2022
This sporting goods market, which now attracts collectors and wealthy investors from around the world, had seen its auction records broken in 2022.
In May, a jersey worn by Argentine captain Diego Maradona in the 1986 FIFA World Cup was purchased for $9.3 million; in September, a jersey of Chicago Bulls number 23 Michael Jordan, which he wore to his last NBA title in 1998, sold for $10.1 million.
Sotheby’s, owned by French-Israeli telecommunications and media magnate Patrick Drahi, also recalls selling a jersey worn by another basketball star, LeBron James, two weeks ago for $3.6 million.
Kobe Bryant’s yellow and purple No. 24 jersey was sold by a person who wishes to remain anonymous.
It was the tunic that he wore on April 23, 2008, where the player was immortalized in a photo, celebrating a three-pointer against the Denver Nuggets, holding the shirt and shouting victory.
What was its price the last time it was bought at auction, in 2013? $18,678.
The death of Kobe Bryant at the age of 41, in a helicopter crash in California on January 26, 2020, had caused great shock in the United States and abroad.
Source: BFM TV
