They Can Air Jordan on a Magical Level With Pay-Per-View

What if Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan got together for a little game of one-on-one? Would you pay to see it?

You may get the opportunity.

The final touches are being put on a deal that will pit Johnson against Jordan on June 25 in a pay-per-view event with a multimillion-dollar purse.

The event will be billed, “King of the Court.”

Details, including the site and financial considerations, are to be announced Feb. 8 at a news conference in Los Angeles.

If viewers will pay $20 to see George Foreman fight Gerry Cooney, as no doubt a good number will on Jan. 15, it figures that they will pay to see Johnson and Jordan square off on the basketball court.

You can’t get much lower than a Foreman-Cooney fight on pay-per-view. Well, maybe with Wrestlemania . . .

Joe Garagiola, looking for a baseball announcing job since quitting NBC before last season, has found one.

Garagiola has been hired by SportsChannel as its Angel play-by-play announcer. He’ll team with Joe Torre.

Things may get a little confusing for Torre. He’ll be the play-by-play announcer when he works with Reggie Jackson on the Channel 5 Angel telecasts, but be the commentator when he works with Garagiola on SportsChannel.

Coincidentally, NBC is a part-owner of SportsChannel, so in a way, Garagiola is returning to his old network.

Joel Meyers is expected to move to the Dodgers, replacing Eddie Doucette.

Ron Cey is said to have the inside track on the Dodger commentator’s job.

Don Sutton, last season’s SportsChannel Dodger commentator, has gone to Turner Broadcasting.

Vin Scully, who has been with NBC since 1983, has severed ties with the network.

Scully had two years remaining on his NBC contract, but when the network lost baseball to CBS, Scully’s contract was voided.

NBC asked Scully to stay on and work the network’s 14 golf tournaments, but this week he declined the offer, saying it involved too many days away from home.

Football work was never a consideration.

Scully’s status with the Dodgers is not expected to change, except that he’ll be available for more games since he won’t have conflicting NBC assignments. Scully will still work radio broadcasts of home games and Channel 11 telecasts of road games.

A likely replacement for Scully as the lead announcer on NBC’s golf telecasts is Charlie Jones.

NBC also will to name a replacement for Lee Trevino, who left the network to join the Senior PGA Tour.

NBC will have to decide soon. It will televise the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in two weeks.

This weekend’s MONY Tournament of Champions at La Costa is being televised by ABC.

CBS has hired ESPN’s Jim Gray as a reporter-producer. He’ll start his new job on the weekend of the NFC and AFC championship games, scheduled for Jan. 14.

Gray, known for breaking a number of major stories, including the Eric Dickerson trade, was with NBC during the Seoul Olympic Games and the following football season. He then went back to ESPN, where he worked before his stint with NBC.

Gray lives in Brentwood.

Pat Summerall and John Madden, who will work the Rams’ playoff game against the New York Giants at 9:30 a.m. Sunday at the Meadowlands, were on a conference call with several reporters Thursday.

Madden, asked about the Rams’ chances of making the Super Bowl, said: “Everything that could be stacked against the Rams is being stacked against them.

“They end the season by playing in New England, then go back to Philadelphia for their first playoff game and now have to come East again.

“That’s 18,000 miles in three weeks. Some people don’t fly that much in in a lifetime.”

Said Summerall: “Yeah, like you, John.”

This big NFL playoff weekend begins Saturday at 9:30 a.m. with Buffalo at Cleveland on NBC.

Charlie Jones and Merlin Olsen drew the announcing assignment, meaning they finished the season as NBC’s No. 2 NFL team behind Dick Enberg and Bill Walsh.

Going into the season, Dick Ebersol and Terry O’Neil, the top executives at NBC Sports, purposely did not name a No. 2 team, leaving it open to competition.

Said Jones at the time: “We’re not going to be the No. 2 team, we’re going to be the 1-A team.”

It was an accurate assessment.

Working Saturday’s Minnesota at San Francisco playoff game at 1 p.m. for CBS will be Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw.

Enberg and Walsh will call the weekend’s final playoff game, Pittsburgh at Denver, on NBC Sunday at 1 p.m.

Walt Hazzard, of all people, is trying to land a broadcasting job.

He has hired an agent, David Martin, who put together Jay Johnstone’s broadcasting deal with the New York Yankees.

Hazzard’s best shot may be with NBC, since he and Bill Cosby are friends.

TV-Radio Notes

Channel 4 wasn’t planning to repeat Fred Roggin’s year-end special, which was shown on New Year’s night after the Orange Bowl, but the station said that because of popular demand, it will be televised again Saturday at 4:30 p.m. . . . Roggin’s 45-minute show averaged an impressive 15.0 Nielsen rating. The lead-in rating was an 11.8, and Channel 4 had quarter-hour increases of 13.4, 14.9 and 16.9 during Roggin’s show. . . . Meanwhile, Channel 7 averaged a respectable 7.0 rating for Todd Donoho’s highlights show after ABC’s Sugar Bowl coverage New Year’s night. . . . More ratings: The Orange Bowl beat out the Sugar Bowl in Los Angeles, 20.2 to 7.9, and nationally, 18.5 to 7.4. Highest-rated bowl game in Los Angeles was the Rose with a 23.9. Other L.A. ratings for New Year’s bowl games: Hall of Fame 8.0, Cotton 6.0, Florida Citrus 4.7 and Fiesta 4.5.

ESPN has hired Sean McDonough, 27-year-old son of CBS’ Will McDonough, as a baseball announcer. The younger McDonough has been a Boston Red Sox announcer the past two seasons. . . . ESPN also hired Gary Thorne, who worked for the Chicago White Sox and ABC last season and previously for the New York Mets. He will be paired with Norm Hitzges, who has been a cable commentator for the Texas Rangers. Hitzges also does a radio sports-talk show in Dallas. . . . Chris Berman will also do some baseball play-by-play for ESPN next season. . . . The primary ESPN team, named earlier, will be Jon Miller and Joe Morgan.

New Dodger reliever Jim Gott is a broadcasting natural. He was on the radio with KABC’s Ed (Superfan) Bieler Wednesday night and earlier with KFI’s Joe McDonnell. In both cases, he handled himself in impressive fashion. Gott, formerly with Pittsburgh, was signed as a free agent. He was a pitcher and outfielder for the 1977 San Marino High School CIF 2-A champions. He was also the 2-A player of the year. . . . Former Dodger and current Yankee pitcher Tim Leary, who caught a white shark this week offshore near his home in Pacific Palisades, was interviewed on Channel 9. The station identified him simply as a fisherman.