Sport

Unseen Kobe Bryant footage up for auction

Published

So stand-out in fact, that Bryant skipped college altogether, entering the NBA Draft as a 17-year old.

Now, 24 years later, over 22 hours of game and interview footage of Bryant from his time at Lower Merion High School in Philadelphia are set to go on auction. The majority of which has never been seen in public.

The auction will take place on July 23 and the lot is expected to fetch between $250,000 and $350,000.

READ: Buy! Buy! Buy! There’s a bull market in Michael Jordan sneakers
Kobe Bryant declared for the NBA Draft directly from high school, entering the league at the age of just 17.

The Last Dance effect

Profiles in History, the auction house responsible for the sale of the library, believes that the recent success of ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary series about Michael Jordan and the six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls makes the Bryant footage “even more relevant.”

The value of Jordan sports memorabilia has shot up in since the documentary series aired earlier this year.

A ‘Dream Team’ jersey worn and signed by Jordan sold for $216,000 the same night the series premiered in April, while the online auction for a game-worn pair of Air Jordan 1s from 1985 closed at $560,000 — over three times the estimated auction price.
READ: A towel Kobe Bryant wore during his farewell speech sold an an auction for over $30,000
Bryant led his Philadelphia high school team the Lower Merion Aces to their first state championship in 53 years.

The Bryant footage is approximately 60% game and 40% interview footage, very little of which was aired — and that was to a very limited audience.

While in high school, Bryant led the Lower Merion Aces to the school’s first state championship in 53 years, earning national recognition in the process.

The library comes from Stu Ross, a high school sports reporter who presented a weekly TV series entitled, “High School Sports Show.”

Ross and his crew recorded over 35,000 games between 1994 and 2003 for the show.

READ: ‘We all have Hoop Dreams’: Bittersweet tale of first ‘reality TV show’

Remembering Kobe

Profiles in History has announced that it will be donating 10% of the final bid price to the MambaOnThree Fund.

The fund was established to honor and support the families of the seven other victims who were also killed in the Calabasas helicopter crash that ended Bryant’s life on January 26 earlier this year.
Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna were killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas along with seven other people.
Bryant’s 13-year old daughter Gianna was one of the other people on board to be killed in the crash.
source: cnn.com