Live Feed Of Jordan Speech Boosts HSN’s Memorabilia Sales

The Home Shopping Network, St. Petersburg, FL, broke into its regularly scheduled programming to carry Michael Jordan’s retirement as a professional basketball player yesterday, and piggybacked an offer for an assortment of memorabilia onto it.

Jordan announced his retirement at a news conference on the basketball court of Chicago’s United Center mid-day yesterday. HSN carried the conference, and immediately followed it with an offering for 15 different products. Additional offerings were made at 5 pm ET and 9 pm ET. The offers will continue to be featured throughout January.

Product listings, which included several “unique to HSN” items, ranged from hand-painted jerseys, which were listed at $4,985, to autographed basketballs ($1,425) and “Michael Jordan Retirement Box Sets” which consisted of 23 full color cards. Many of the items offered were limited to editions of 23, or somehow incorporated the number 23, in honor of Jordan’s jersey number.