Agency :
Michael Jordan’s earliest known regular season game-worn Nike shoes sold at a Sotheby’s auction in Las Vegas Sunday for $1.47 million, breaking a record for sneakers sold at auction.
The shoes were worn in Jordan’s fifth NBA game in his rookie season in 1984, the same year that Nike and Jordan created his signature line of shoes and clothes. The shoes were estimated to sell for $1 million to $1.5 million. The buyer was Nick Fiorella, a high-end cards collector, Sotheby’s said in a statement.
The sneakers are “simply an incredible artifact that dates to the nascency of Michael Jordan’s rookie season,” Brahm Wahter, head of Sotheby’s Streetwear and Modern Collectibles, said in a statement ahead of the auction.
The Jordans aren’t the most expensive sneakers ever sold. In April, the company Rares bought a $1.8 million pair of Kanye West’s Nike Air Yeezy 1 sneakers in a Sotheby’s private sale, making them the most expensive known pair of shoes ever sold.
