The hype surrounding rookie Victor Wembanyama isn’t dying down anytime soon, and that’s translating into big bucks on the secondary market for game worn memorabilia.
Famed auction house Sotheby’s announced this week that a jersey worn by Wembenyama in the 2nd half of his NBA debut vs. the Dallas Mavericks on October 25th sold for an astounding $762,000 Tuesday.
The sum is a record for an NBA debut jersey, shattering the company’s pre-auction estimates of $80,000-$120,000. To put the figure in context, fellow rookies Brandon Miller, and Scoot Henderson, the number 2 and 3 overall picks in the 2023 NBA draft also had their rookie debut jerseys up for sale but fell well short of Wemby’s mark. Miller’s debut threads fetched $27,940 while Henderson brought in $19,050.
Former uber prospect Zion Williamson also had a rookie debut jersey hit the auction block 1 month into his NBA rookie season, but only managed to bring in $80,040 during the 2019-2020 campaign.
Sotheby’s was recently named the official “game worn source of the NBA”, and will seek to establish itself as the premier destination for game worn memorabilia across the sporting landscape. Given its prestigious reputation, the auction house was able to fetch 62 bids on Wembanyama’s jersey, which was one of the “highest levels of participation for a sports memorabilia auction at Sotheby’s,” according to a company spokesperson.
Earlier this year, a Wemby super-fan shelled out $62,000 for a game-worn jersey from the Frenchman’s NBA summer league debut, but a regular season jersey was always going to have more cache behind it. That being said, the nearly million dollar final bid was a shock to even the curators at the auction house.
Even with the dismal state of NFT investments, a Victor Wembanyama NFT trading card sold for over $110K earlier this month, making the 7’4” forward’s memorabilia a hot commodity wherever it is sold.
Averaging 18.6pts/9.1reb/2.5ast/2.6blk per game, Wemby is in a tightly contested battle with OKC Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren for rookie of the year honours this season.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Thomas S. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.