Michael Jordan is the man in the sports card hobby. The NBA legend dominates search results on eBay every month, his cards are the most sold across all sports, and now a one-of-a-kind card featuring both him and Kobe Bryant has achieved the highest publicly known sale of any sports card in the history of the industry at $12.9 million.
Despite this massive interest, Jordan hasn’t appeared on an NBA licensed (featuring logos and team names) trading card since 2009 — at least, not legally. That’s the last time Upper Deck, the company that has held the exclusive license with Jordan since he retired for the final time in 2003, could print a card with Jordan in a Chicago Bulls or Washington Wizards uniform.
Panini, which currently carries the NBA license for cards, hasn’t been allowed to include Jordan cards within any of its products (other companies were able to produce Jordan cards during his playing career through NBA licensing, which was not limited to one manufacturer in the 1990s). Upper Deck doesn’t take the license lightly, either. The company sued Panini in January 2020 when Jordan appeared in the background of three Panini cards. The two sides reached a settlement in June 2021.
One of the three Panini cards that prompted Upper Deck to take legal action for unauthorized use of Michael Jordan’s likeness (circled in bottom right corner of the card image). (photo: eBay)
Topps, which will take over the exclusive NBA license on Oct. 1, also won’t be able to include Jordan cards or even Jordan in the background of another player’s card either.
“Collectors want it, but until Upper Deck can secure an NBA trading card license, it won’t happen,” Upper Deck president Jason Masherah recently told The Athletic.
This also means that the only new Jordan autographed cards being produced are in Upper Deck’s unlicensed sets, like Goodwin Champions, depicting Jordan in street clothes or other non-NBA apparel. Unlike other legends who sign licensed cards throughout their retirement years, creating a large supply, Jordan offerings remain largely frozen, only adding to their value on the secondary market.
The “newest” twist on Jordan autographed official NBA cards to hit circulation wasn’t wholly new since they were examples of his 1986 Fleer rookie card. What made them “new” was the fresh autograph on the nine cards, signed privately outside of his Upper Deck deal — an extremely rare occurrence. One of the cards, a “Mint” PSA 9 example with a “Gem Mint” 10 autograph grade, sold for $2.5 million in June through Joopiter, an auction house owned by musician Pharrell Williams. It was the first sports card Joopiter had ever sold via auction.
Jordan inked these cards after they were removed from their graded slabs during a private signing for an unnamed collector at Jordan’s ultra-exclusive private golf club in Hobe Sound, Florida. Some of these cards received gem mint 10 card grades by PSA following the signing. If any of the PSA 10 graded versions went up for sale, the price tag could hit north of $7 million. (A PSA 10 card is typically worth at least three times as much as a PSA 9 example of the same card.)
For perspective, Heritage Auctions estimated the value of the Jordan/Kobe Bryant one-of-one 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection dual Logoman autographed patch card to reach at least $6 million. It sold for more than double the estimate at $12.9 million during the August auction.
Bryant, the other star on that record-setting card, similarly has not been included on any official NBA cards since Panini’s 2019-20 releases, the last before his death in January 2020 (the lone exception was an insert card of his Slam Magazine cover in Panini’s 2020-21 NBA Hoops set). Panini declined to provide clarity on the current status of Bryant’s trading card image rights when reached for comment.
Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions, believes the dual Logoman sale might open the market up for more Jordan and Bryant cards that have been hidden away in private collections to become available.
“You look at 2019, 2018, 2020. Let’s say there were maybe 15 or 20 PSA 10 Jordan 1986 Fleer rookies that sold over that three-year period publicly,” Goldin said. “And in January (2021), we sold two of them in the same auction for $720,000 each, which was triple the previous record. Over the next year, I sold 50 of them. Like literally everybody who has a PSA 10 rookie Jordan contacted me. The pop (population count), there was only like 300 in the world and literally about 20 percent of the entire world’s supply of that card and that grade passed through my hands really through the next six months after it.
“So what happens in any market, when you have a new high set, it’s kind of like a stock having a new high, right? Your stock sets a new high, people held the stock for years at five, 10, 15 percent of that price said, ‘Oh my God! Look how much money this is worth, I need to sell it, or I need to sell some.’ So then it goes to the market, and the market absorbs it. Sometimes it goes down as a result. But then it gets absorbed and it moves forward. So I would certainly expect to see some big cards, both modern and vintage, let loose from collections over the next three to nine months.”
The 2007 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Jordan/Bryant autographed dual Logoman card that sold for $12.9 million (image: Heritage Auctions)
This would only increase the traffic for Jordan and Bryant cards to marketplaces and auction houses like eBay, Goldin, Heritage, Fanatics Collect and others. One more recent card Masherah pointed to that might be highly sought following the Jordan/Bryant record breaking sale could be the 2024 Skybox Metal Universe Precious Metal Gems (or “PMG,” one of the most sought-after and valuable insert series in sports card history) one-of-one Nike Jumpman gold card. It doesn’t depict Jordan in an NBA uniform, but it’s an iconic image with cultural relevance.
Cards like the Jumpman PMG and Goodwin Champions autographs are two examples of how Upper Deck continues producing Jordan cards. How much deeper can Upper Deck go with Jordan given the public’s interest?
“It’s hard to say he’s going to do more than what he’s done,” Masherah said. “So Michael’s been an exclusive spokesman now for 34 years. He’s been doing this so long. I don’t know how much more he can do. I think honestly it’s more up to Upper Deck to continue to come up with creative ways to deliver new Michael Jordan content. We actually have some pretty fun, big plans for Michael in 2026 that we’re very excited about.”
Masherah didn’t elaborate any further on what could be on the horizon for Jordan collectors. Still, the Upper Deck president said there’s been a concerted effort not to flood the market with Jordan items even though there’s a thirst from the public, as well as easy money for the card company.
“He’s the biggest athlete on the planet and that’s not changing any time soon and we’re very proud of the relationship we have and the way that we’ve managed his brand and the collectible space together,” Masherah said. “It’s not an accident that he has valuable cards and the most valuable collectibles in the industry. It’s obviously the value of Michael, but it’s also the way that we have cultivated and carefully released products of his over the years to make sure it’s not too much.”
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(Top photo: VINCE BUCCI/AFP via Getty Images)
