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Michael Jordan's 'Air Jordan' championship sneakers could each rake in $1 million in Sotheby's private sale

Michael Jordan's championship game-worn shoes are now on public display ahead of a private sale as Sotheby's expands its white-glove treatment to a younger, growing streetwear and modern collectibles segment.

The "Dynasty Collection" includes six individual sneakers, originally designed and released by Nike (NKE), that Michael Jordan wore during each of his NBA Finals championship-clinching games for the Chicago Bulls during the 1990s. The exhibition runs through June 7 — coinciding with the 2023 NBA Finals best of 7 series.

The coveted memorabilia doesn't have a price tag or seller detail publicly available yet, but estimates suggest just one of the shoes could fetch offers north of $1 million, based on sales of comparable sports collectibles.

Video transcript

- Sotheby's is known for generating eye-popping sales across a range of ultra rare art, luxury goods, and property. The streetwear and modern collectibles arm of the business is now the platform for the sale of what it's dubbed "The Dynasty Collection" which consists of one Air Jordan shoe from each of Michael Jordan's six championship-clinching NBA Finals games.

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Yahoo Finance had the opportunity to go hands on-- with white gloves, of course-- to discuss the shoes once worn by "His Airness."

What's going on, everyone. Yahoo Finance here with Brahm Wachter who is Sotheby's head of streetwear and modern collectibles. Talk to us about your segment within Sotheby's. What type of growth have you seen?

BRAHM WACHTER: Well, Sotheby's luxury as an overall did over $2.3 billion in sale last year. Streetwear and modern collectibles did about 50 million. An in our offerings, about 90% of the lots were sold.

- Who are the buyers that you hear from and the interest that you hear from as well?

BRAHM WACHTER: Our buyers typically are younger, so they typically range 20 to 40. They're sort of titans of industry, so usually successful in finance, successful in real estate, advertising, marketing. They have either a passion for sports memorabilia, collectibles, or they just have a passion for-- for deadstock sneakers.

- So I did walk in off the street. I saw this exhibition. I said, Brahm, I want to purchase like here and now today. How much do I need to be ready to potentially pony up?

BRAHM WACHTER: Obviously we've got six unbelievable sneakers here. And so, you know, the sky's the limit.

We've noticed that in terms of sports collectibles over the last year, even given the economic turmoil at a high level, the market is doing really well. We sold, less than a year ago, Michael Jordan's jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals for $10.1 million.

Shortly thereafter, we sold the LeBron jersey from Game 7 of the 2013 NBA Finals for $3.7 million. And then we later sold a Kobe jersey for just about $6 million. And so what we're seeing is for the highest end collectibles, for the best sports memorabilia, and really the most iconic moments of different athletes' careers, the market really has been quite strong. And we haven't seen really a sign of that slowing down.