PRO FOOTBALL, IN L.A.

It’s Not the National Football League, but the New Los Angeles Avengers Will Play With a Pigskin

Arena football may look odd at first. Players sprint up and down a 50-yard field--only half regulation size--and frequently smash into the padded boards along the sidelines. Running plays are few and touchdown passes are many. It’s a life-sized video game.

But these irregularities may be the sport’s charm.

“High-action, fast-paced,” Casey Wasserman says. “This is the most exciting indoor sport people can see.”

Wasserman is the 25-year-old Wunderkind--and grandson to former MCA/Universal chief Lew Wasserman--who brings the Arena Football League back to Los Angeles in the form of a new franchise, the Avengers, beginning play at the Staples Center next year. He is treading on ground where a previous team, the Cobras of the late 1980s, failed.

This time, however, arena football is riding a wave of popularity with national cable telecasts and successful franchises in more than a dozen cities. The Avengers expect a warm welcome, if only because Los Angeles has no National Football League team and the AFL season begins in April, long after the college season has ended.

“There are summer doldrums for football fans,” Wasserman said. “We can be someone’s football fix.”

The Avengers also bill themselves as a cheap way to get a good seat at the Staples Center. Front-row tickets have already sold out at $100 a game, but fans can still get a spot in the lower concourse, between the goal lines, for $28. The cheapest seats cost $7 a game; it’s just $56 for a season pass that includes one preseason and seven regular-season dates.

That kind of money barely gets you in the door for the Lakers. And there’s another bonus to this funny sport.

“If a ball goes into the stands,” Wasserman says, “you get to keep it.”