Last Dance Effect On Vintage Market 

After Espn dropped the documentary about the legendary 90’s bulls dynasty, “The last dance” influenced and reached out to millions of nostalgic fans who wanted to purchase a piece of Micheal Jordan or Chicago bulls since the documentary aired. According to data Micheal Jordan was searched more than 821 times a minute on e-bay and the average sale of Chicago bulls items spiked about 5000 percent over what was averaged before the documentary was revealed.

The stir created was not just restricted to tweets, memes, or debates about the bulls legacy but was also reflected in the vintage apparel market where people are looking for thier own relic of Bulls memorabilia. Because it was the 90’s plenty of merchandise was produced from t-shirts to jerseys. Few instances include Dennis Rodman’s Nike t-shirt being sold for about $500 dollars and the three-peat graphic tee for about a $100 dollars. The best thing about the collection is that there is something for each and every budget which is encouraging people to feed into nostalgia and buy what they can afford.

Round two co-founder, Luke Fracher successfully found out a way to capitalize on the current hype. The Vintage retailer company came up with an exclusive curated bull collection which it released on its online store. He believes that people who were not interested in buying an old bull t-shirt are now willing to pay for them because they now know what the era was like and the legacy which followed. Currently, Round two has kept a rack just dedicated to the bulls collection knowing that it is now the hottest commodity in the city.

Vintage boutiques like Los Angeles “For all to envy”,  Houston’s “imperial” and New York’s “MR. Throwback” has released a limited collection celebrating the bulls legacy and focusing on the big three: Jordan, Rodman and Pippen, most of which immediately sold out. The collection essential includes rare original Nike Bulls t-shirt which were released during Micheal Jordan’s prime.

Casey pit, the man who has been operating “Rare vintage” for over 7 years now says that ever since the episodes were released any search related to bulls or Jordan has spiked too. Knowing that everyone will be hunting for the merch, he curated a special collection for his shop and dropped it. Although he faced a lot of issues due to  COVID 19, he somehow managed to reach out to collectors and even dipped his personal collection to serve the purpose. He States that the backbone of his vintage collection was Bulls stuff, Raiders Stuff or graphic tee featuring iconic rap artist such as “Eazy E”. The fact that Jordan rocked his sneakers on the court as well as off the court made them extremely popular was something which he firmly believed.

Reebok also took the opportunity to capitalize and flaunted items like the “Dream team”  jacket, which has a history related to it where Jordan covered the Reebok logo with an American flag. Although, the brand claimed that the release was purely reactionary and was pulled from warehouse inventory following traction from an Instagram post. Mitchell and Ness, a company known for its vintage apparel has also promoted it’s bulls related product on social media featuring 1998 warm-up jackets to Dennis Rodman throwback T-shirts. The sales were not just restricted to the bulls. Even rivals like the bad boys piston and other teams or players who were featured in the last dance were a part of the high tide.

Vic Lloyd who is the co-founder of Chicago’s Fat tiger workshop and a native of the windy city-states that in the 90’s it felt like Chicago was the center of the world. He says that he bought t-shirts ever year but thinks that its fake given that at that time t-shirts were sold everywhere. It’s ironic that the T-shirts which were available for $10 or $20 back then are one of the most coveted vintage items today some of which sell for around $400, approximately 20 to 40 times the retail price.

The resale price also depends on the size of the merchandise. Vintage apparel is often bought baggier, thus large and extra-large sizes are priced higher than the small or medium ones.

Thus after “the last dance”, a sharp increase in interest in the vintage market is common. This was also observed when the basketball hall of fame and former NBA legend Kobe Bryant passed away. His tragic death also had a big impact on the market where people were searching for all Kobe related items.

Thus the conclusion is that vintage sellers are giving in their best to capitalize on the bulls as it is the hottest topic at the moment.

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