You Can’t Put Price on Courtside Bearers of Good Schmooze

So Arsenio Hall, sizzling comet of a talk-show host, and Irving Azoff, King Midas of the record biz, are enjoying a Laker game at the Forum from Irving’s courtside seats, down there where your hair gets mussed by the jet stream.

Maybe it’s the force field of highly charged molecular particles that are set to bouncing by the Laker fast break and can be felt only by the chosen 128 courtsiders, but Arsenio has a burst of creativity and comes up with this hilarious spoof of a rap artist. He raps a few lines at Azoff, knocks Irving right out of his chair.

Azoff says something like, “Could you do that for a whole album?” and Arsenio says something like “In my sleep,” and before live action resumes on the court, Arsenio has agreed to a recording contract and the deal has been consummated with a legally binding, interlocking, five-part soul/mogul handshake.

“It’s an incredible tool,” Azoff says, referring to his pair of seats on the South baseline. “I’ve signed an untold number of artists with the help of those seats. When I produced ‘Urban Cowboy’ and I was romancing John Travolta to play the lead, I took him to a couple of games, and that helped.”

For guys such as Azoff, the $250 per-seat tab this season, $275 for playoff games, is truly an entertainment bargain. But what about next season, when the tariff rises again?

“How much?” Azoff asks.

“To 350 bucks a game,” I inform him.

” . . . !!!” he remarks.

If Azoff acts quickly, he can take advantage of a Jerry Buss special. Buss will pay $10,000 each for any of those courtside seats a season-ticket holder will surrender. Buss desperately needs 12 of those seats for special friends and sponsors.

He will be very lucky if he gets one or two.

“When you’ve led a charmed business life,” Azoff says, “this is one of those luxuries you can’t put a price on. Rock ‘n’ roll’s been good to me.”

When Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979, the courtside seats were $15 each. In an absurdly brash move, Buss increased the price the next season to $45 and waited for the storm of protest. Instead he got thank-you notes for holding down the price, so he immediately jacked it up to $60. And so on.

Last season they were $175 each. Remember when $175 seemed like a lot of money to pay for a seat at a sports event?

In 10 years there have been two seats surrendered, both for medical reasons (courtsiders sometimes catch flying ballplayers).

You want a seat? You’ve got the money? Fine, stand in line over there, right behind Michael Jackson and all the other heavies who can’t wedge into the courtside roster with a crowbar. The only exception in recent years is John McEnroe, for whom two new baseline seats were created in lieu of payments of huge sums for tennis exhibitions at the Forum.

If Michael Jackson wants a courtside seat, he’ll have to work on his forehand volley.

Last year Buss offered $1,000 to anyone who would give up a courtside seat. The holders laughed in his face. The new $10,000 reward is still pathetically low, especially considering that Buss has promised to install more comfortable seats next season.

Even if a courtsider sold out and moved back just a few rows, into the civilian population, he might as well be sailing off the edge of the earth. “Once you’ve sat on the floor, everything else is terribly unacceptable,” says Steve Chase, the Forum’s director of marketing. “Once you’ve lived in Beverly Hills, it’s difficult to live in Bakersfield.”

Look what you get for your courtside buck:

“You’re in the game,” says Azoff, chairman of MCA, with clients such as Elton John and Tom Petty. “You really are in the game. I have an action-packed day, and I get a great release yelling at the players. I had a great discussion with (Seattle Coach) Bernie Bickerstaff at halftime. You can always tell the guys who have rabbit ears. Bernie goes nuts over a call in the first half. He’s walking out at halftime and I say, ‘Hey, Bernie, you didn’t really argue that call, did you?’

“He turned around and started screaming at me. ‘You want to do something?’

“You get to know the officials. We’ve had some talks with Earl Strom. One Celtic playoff game, we’re complaining to him about some calls. Larry Bird made a couple of great steals and Earl came over and said, ‘Not that’s real basketball.’

“Darryl Dawkins (then with the Philadelphia 76ers) tried to chase me off the court. He mugged (Michael) Cooper in the finals in ‘80, left him in a heap. One of my friends said, ‘Hey, Darryl, we canceled your hotel reservation, we got you a jail cell.’ He came off the court at us, got a technical.”

Joe Smith, president of Capitol Records and a neighbor of Azoff on the South baseline, says: “You come down there at halftime, you see movie studio heads, record company heads. Dyan will run down there. It’s a good place to schmooze. There’s no place in town where people hang out any more, except right there. I know many deals are pushed along there.”

The Dyan who runs down there is Ms. Cannon, I believe, though it could be Prince Charles’ wife. I’d mention some of the other huge entertainment-industry people who hang there, but I might leave someone out, hurt a key feeling and have a door slammed in my face next time I pitch a film idea or an album concept.

The thrills and schmoozes will cost Azoff, Smith and friends $20,675 per fanny next season, assuming there are a full slate of playoff games (at $375 each, plus two exhibition games at $350). Multiply that by the 128 seats and you have the Buss take of $2,646,400, not counting parking and popcorn.

I don’t know why Buss bothers with fractions. Why not jack up the price to an even $1,000 per seat, or $2,000? Separate the men from the boys, fiscally speaking.

Meanwhile, I’m rushing down to the record store to see if they’ve got the new rap-duet album featuring Bernie Bickerstaff and Earl Strom.