Subject: "Magic" Opts to Retire
Date: Published: 11/3/92 (39 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Advertising:
    Network Targets Drivers at Truck Stops
    ----
    By Kevin Goldman

[105 lines irrelevant to AIDS omitted.  -- sysop]
 
    `Magic' Opts to Retire
    Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced that he will indeed retire from
 professional basketball, reversing his decision of last September to
 return to the game even though he has HIV, the virus that causes
 AIDS.  
    "It has become obvious that the various controversies surrounding
 my return are taking away from both basketball as a sport and the
 larger issue of living with HIV," he said in a statement issued
 through the Los Angeles Lakers.  Mr. Johnson first retired from the
 National Basketball Association last year, citing his infection with
 HIV.  
    The companies with whom Mr. Johnson has active endorsement
 contracts said his announcement wouldn't prompt major changes in ad
 plans.  Philip Morris's Miller Brewing unit said it would go forward
 with an unspecified "promotional program" and an AIDS-awareness
 program; Skybox International, the Research Triangle Park, N. C.,
 trading-card company, said it would continue to focus ads and
 promotions on Mr. Johnson, whom they signed as an endorser during
 his first retirement last year.
    PepsiCo's Pepsi-Cola said it probably wouldn't air the "We
 believe in Magic" TV commercial during Lakers games anymore.  That
 spot, created as a salute to Mr. Johnson when he played on the U. S. 
 Olympic team last summer, mixes scenes of Mr. Johnson practicing
 alone in a gym with shots of adoring fans.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the
 personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the
 hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering
 from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]