The NBA’s return to Abu Dhabi this year came with more than just courtside drama. In partnership with Sotheby’s, the league dropped NBA Auctions: 2025 Abu Dhabi Games— an online sale where fans can actually own the jerseys worn by New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers players. The auction runs until October 6, putting game-worn gear straight into the hands of collectors across the region.
Sotheby’s has been the NBA’s Official Game Worn Source since late 2023, and the partnership is already rewriting the rules of what counts as a collectible. Victor Wembanyama’s rookie debut jersey sold for $762,000 (six times its estimate), while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Finals jersey went for $165,100 earlier this year. In Paris, Sotheby’s staged its first-ever NBA memorabilia auction in sync with the NBA Paris Games, proving that basketball culture has become a global luxury category of its own.
The demand is only heating up. Sports memorabilia is projected to hit $227.2 billion by 2032. In 2024 alone, NBA Auctions sold more than 2,000 items with every single one of them snapped up. What’s more, the buyers aren’t your traditional Sotheby’s crowd: 65% of bidders and 80% of buyers are new to the house, with nearly half under 40 and a quarter still in their 20s.
That youth shift makes the Gulf the perfect stage. In the UAE, 39% of Sotheby’s bidders are under 40, and the region has seen a 24% rise in bidders and 25% rise in buyers over the past five years. Sotheby’s, which first touched down in Abu Dhabi in 2009, has since gone all in on the Middle East— including opening an office in Saudi Arabia— a sign of confidence in the Gulf’s role as both cultural and luxury powerhouse. Just this year, the auction house held a diamond exhibition in Abu Dhabi in April, and just last week exhibited $150 million worth of fine art in Abu Dhabi from the likes of Van Gogh, Munch, Kahlo, Magritte, Gauguin, and Pissaro. In December, they will be holding their first ever marquee auction series in Abu Dhabi in collaboration with Abu Dhabi Investment Office.
That with the UAE’s cultural playbook (Louvre Abu Dhabi, new museums, a packed art fair circuit), and it’s clear why the NBA chose this city for its next collectible drop.
Bidding is live now on Auctions.NBA.com until October 6.
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