MAGIC REAPPEARS : Laker Tickets Are Back in Demand

The news of Magic Johnson’s return to the Lakers, and before that, just the rumor of his comeback, sent ticket prices soaring in local brokerages and inundated ticket offices at the Forum and around the country.

Tonight’s game against the Golden State Warriors, in which Johnson will return to the NBA, sold out at the Forum in about five hours Monday when fans bought the remaining 2,300 tickets available. But you can still buy a ticket, at $100-$300, from a broker.

Friday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls was already a sellout before Johnson announced he was returning, and brokers are selling tickets at $100-$1,000.

Tickets to Sunday’s home game against the Utah Jazz are also selling quickly.

“Earvin is a very popular player, and people in the entire NBA want to see him and see how he has changed,” said Steve Chase, director of sales for the Lakers. “He is a different player now. He has built himself up in the weight room and has a Karl Malone look now.”

Television has also joined the frenzy. Prime Sports, which televises Laker home games, will carry the games against the Warriors and Bulls as usual. But nationally, TNT has added both telecasts to its schedule, though they will both be blacked out in the Los Angeles area. NBC’s schedule, which has three Laker telecasts remaining this season, will not change at this time, an NBA spokesman said.

It is speculated that Johnson’s comeback will boost sagging Laker attendance--both at home and on the road--and television ratings, which have decreased significantly since he retired.

Channel 9, which televises Laker road games, had ratings that reached double digits at times when Johnson was playing. But by the time he returned to coach, at the end of the 1993-94 season, the Lakers were averaging a 5 rating, as they are now. Johnson’s first Channel 9 telecast as coach drew a 7.4 rating.

Prime Sports would not disclose ratings, but spokesmen for both companies said Johnson’s return would have no effect on their current television contracts with the Lakers. When Wayne Gretzky was signed by the Kings in 1988, Prime Ticket agreed to an increase of $750,000 a year to $2.8 million.

In home attendance, only four teams are drawing fewer fans than the Lakers, who have averaged 14,439 this season, about the same as last. A sellout is 17,505.

Laker attendance remained high for the first season after Johnson retired, totaling 699,240 and averaging 17,055. But since the 1992 season, attendance has dropped about 3,000 tickets a game.

On the road, Laker attendance is merely average, but the Lakers’ next road game, against the Denver Nuggets on Feb. 6, is heading toward a sellout. And the Seattle SuperSonics, who don’t play host to the Lakers for six weeks, sold 50 tickets Monday. “It’s very rare to sell 50 tickets in one day to a game six weeks away,” said spokesman Marc Moquin.

In Denver, Kirk Dyer, director of ticket operations for the Nuggets, said, “Since the rumor started on Friday, we have sold 683 tickets, and it’s only 1 o’clock. Saturday we sold about 350 tickets alone, and as a comparison, last Saturday we sold a total of 18 tickets.”

But L.A.-based Laker fans, used to hearing rumors about Johnson’s return, remained skeptical until the Lakers announced the news.

“In terms of the rumors about Magic coming back, that’s been going on and off for years,” Chase said. “And frankly, it wasn’t until we announced it that the ticket activity increased.”

* Times Staff Writer Larry Stewart contributed to this story.