This Proposed Deal Would Floor Magic

Representing Earvin Johnson, of Lansing, Mich., we are requesting a contract review for our client.

What we ask is more reasonable than, say, what Melvin Belli asked the time he sued the San Francisco Giants because a heater under his season seat failed to function.

Belli asked for all the bats and balls, for all the whiskey in the stadium club, and for Willie Mays. He won the case, but got only cash, which he donated to the city of San Francisco to plant trees.

In behalf of Earvin Johnson, employed by the Lakers, we propose a deal whereby the floor seats at the Forum be turned over to Earvin in exchange for his services.

The floor seats, more commonly known as Nicholson Row, are named for Jack Nicholson, film player and regular tenant, in this row. Involved here are 128 accommodations, sold this season at $450 per seat, per game.

Now reports escape that those seats next season may be boosted to $500, meaning for our client, Mr. Johnson, $64,000 a game.

Yielding oil rights, he will take charge of the seats, be responsible for their maintenance and for collecting from those who inhabit Nicholson Row.

Some submit that anyone who would pay $500, or even $450, to watch the Lakers play, say, the Orlando Magic, has a basketball for a head.

But Earvin Johnson and his agent don’t concern themselves with matters of human behavior. That is society’s problem. If the seats go for $500, the revenue belongs to Earvin.

The Lakers play 41 regular-season games at home. Once the seats are consigned to Johnson, he will ask that those who sit in Nicholson Row also pay $500 for each game the Lakers play on the road.

“But what if we don’t want to sit in Nicholson Row the nights the Lakers are playing in Milwaukee and Charlotte?” a patron asks.

Earvin answers: “That’s your business. Collecting for the seats is mine.”

The patron asks: “Look, if I pay $500 for a seat and leave at the end of the third period, do I get a refund of $125?”

Earvin responds: “Say you order a rack of lamb in a restaurant. It cost 30 bucks. Each rack has four chops. Say you eat only three. Does the house refund you $7.50?”

The patron grumbles: “Maybe not. But for every Laker game, I can buy almost 17 lamb racks.”

The late Doc Kearns, a brilliant promoter, never cared for the idea of charging fans a lot for a ticket. Said Doc: “I liked it better in the old days when we let ‘em in for nothing and sent the boys out to rob their house.”

Taking control of Nicholson Row at the Forum, Johnson aims to run an audit to determine who actually pays for those seats.

Does Nicholson pay? Dyan Cannon? Walter Matthau? Are some of the seats traded out to Great Western Bank, for which the Forum is now named?

You can be assured that when our client, Earvin Johnson, takes over the seats, no one will be on the cuff.

Sitting in Nicholson Row is like staying at the Ritz. But if one has encountered no problems being seen in the ghetto, embracing several thousand other seats between the baskets, one has been able to see the Lakers for $90 a night.

Any guy walking down Broadway has that much. The man who owns the team deduces that when you ask $90 for a seat, you merely eliminate the middleman.

Otherwise, the scalper would buy and get $90 from the client.

This makes the Lakers both the entrepreneur and the scalper.

The concept is so exciting that the guy who owns the hockey Kings hiked his price for decent seats to $65.

He notes, with regret, he isn’t able to sell floor seats to hockey games, because liability premiums covering fans who sit on the ice would put one out of business.

This isn’t fair to the Kings. If a fan seated on the ice gets a stick in the mouth, there should be no grounds for a claim.