Don't know who had the ball initially. Because of the SNAFU this ball becomes MORE famous, so maybe the value goes up. Anyway, if you have half a mil to drop on a football, you probably aren't sweating it too much.
Four years ago street artist Banksy put a painting up for auction (if you don't know who Banksy is, that's a big big deal) and someone bid 1.4 million dollars...........but the large frame of the painting was actually a shredder and as soon as the bid was signed off, someone turned the shredder on and the painting started going through it, but the shredder jammed and only shredded the bottom half of the painting. The story is that Banksy thought it was ridiculous for someone to bid that kind of money for something that took no effort, and he was going to give the money back, but now, there is no more famous piece of contemporary art in the world, so that half-shredded painting is worth a whole lot more.