The Buck Stops With 25-Year-Old

Casey Wasserman doesn’t look like a man who gives orders. If anything, he looks like he should be sitting in an office, resume in hand, answering questions in a job interview.

His head doesn’t have the receding hairline of an executive. There’s a bit too much hair, actually. Little tufts stick out here and there in the unrefined manner of a college senior on his way to a morning class.

These wouldn’t be noteworthy characteristics of a 25-year-old, except most 25-year-olds don’t own their own professional sports team.

For now the Los Angeles Avengers exist only in an office on Sepulveda Boulevard, their identity still forged on a series of concept drawings. By next summer they will be a tenant in the Staples Center, the newest entry in the Arena Football League.

And they belong to Wasserman.

This isn’t some joke. It’s not a quirk in a will. It’s the result of focus, drive and an abundance of resources. It’s the result of planning--OK, not exceptionally long-term planning, but definitely planning.

Wasserman can erase most of your doubts not by explaining how he’s doing it, but by telling you why he’s doing it.

“The great thing about sports is, you do all the preparation and then you go out there and you win or lose,” Wasserman said. “It’s a very direct result of your actions. In most other business, you rationalize the result. I’m not saying that’s bad, it’s just--whether ‘Being a public company our earnings weren’t as good, but the devaluation of the real in Brazil affected our sales in Brazil and that made it one cent cheaper’--whatever it is you can always spin it, one way or another.”

Any time someone discusses foreign currency fluctuation simply as a hypothetical example, that gets my attention.

He has savvy beyond his years. No doubt, he also enjoys privileges beyond the scope of most people no matter how long they’ve been around.

His grandfather, former MCA/Universal chief Lew Wasserman, reigned as one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood.

He’s incredibly well-connected. Not many 25-year-olds are on a first-name basis with network presidents, but when CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves’ name came up in a recent breakfast meeting, Wasserman chimed in: “Les is a great guy.”

Lew Wasserman’s support gave Casey the kind of clout and financial backing that the Arena Football League couldn’t ignore. Wasserman would be the first to tell you that nothing he said wowed the owners as much as the unprecedented $5-million franchise fee he was willing to pay.

He has learned at the side of the best. His grandfather was the ultimate deal-maker in this town. Casey’s passion was sports, not entertainment, but the principles his grandfather taught him still applied.

“When you’re exposed for a long period of time, you pick stuff up,” Wasserman said. “I got to see things unfold. And he would talk to me about them.”

Wasserman doesn’t pretend to know it all. He’s learning on the fly, gaining knowledge on the fly on everything from copyright law to Internet search engine protocol.

But what he does know he puts to use. He can quickly list which Arena Football League franchises are successful and why. He even has an appreciation for the nuances of the sport, which is played indoors on a 50-yard field.

“It’s a game on the cutting edge,” said Gene Nudo, vice president of administration for the two-time champion Arizona Rattlers. “I think it’ll be very refreshing having a guy like Casey in the league.”

At his first league meeting, “Casey kind of felt his way through, kept his mouth shut, kept his opinion to himself,” Nudo said. “Over the past year, he’s become an asset to this league. His input is valuable, his business sense is very good--well beyond his years.”

Wasserman is smart enough to know that he has a tough sell in this entertainment-glutted market. He knows that Arena Football tried and failed once before in L.A. (the Los Angeles Cobras played one season in the Sports Arena in 1989 and drew an average of 7,507 fans).

He hopes to capitalize on those fans who find NBA and NHL tickets to be cost-prohibitive and will sell Avengers games as an inexpensive way to go to the Staples Center.

He also wants to reach out to the burgeoning Latino market, and even has Spanish versions of the team insignia (“Avengadores”) in the works.

Wasserman has had a say in practically every aspect of the team. He had final approval on the name, the logo, the colors and the uniforms.

“I’m on the line. It’s my name--or our family name--out there. I wanted it to be representative of what I felt was important, what I felt should be done. For right or for wrong. If we fail, I’m open to criticism. If we’re a success . . . I’m willing to accept that, because I want this to be reflective of how I feel this should be presented and done and operated and where the money should be spent. I feel pretty passionate about that.”

After he graduated from UCLA in 1996 he worked for Waterton Management, a private investment firm. He and his grandfather had talked about entering sports ownership--perhaps even an NFL expansion team for L.A.--but when he read last year that the NFL had bought an interest in the Arena Football League, the AFL started looking like a viable option.

He ran it by Staples Center President Tim Leiweke, who liked the idea, and he made his expansion presentation to the AFL’s owners in October. His team begins play next April.

He turned 25 last month.

“To me, age wasn’t a factor,” Wasserman said. “Maybe it’s a crude way of looking at it, but there’s horrible owners who are 60 years old. I don’t think there’s a requisite for being an owner at a good age. I don’t think there’s an age requirement, frankly, in anything.”

No argument here. Young ownership beats corporate ownership any day of the week.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.