Casey Wasserman: Difference between revisions

American businessman

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Casey Wasserman (né Myers; June 28, 1974) is an American entertainment executive and sports agent. He is the founder and CEO of Wasserman, a sports marketing and talent agency. He is chairman of the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Wasserman is the son of the Los Angeles socialite and philanthropist Lynne Wasserman and Jack Myers (formerly Meyerowitz), and the grandson of Lew Wasserman.^[1] He has used the surname Wasserman since he was 18.^[2] He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1996 with a BA in political science.^[3][4]

In 1998, Wasserman purchased the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League (AFL). He paid about $5 million for the franchise rights. Despite his youth, he was elected chairman of the league. In 2002, he negotiated a national television partnership between the league and NBC television, as well as the collective bargaining agreement with its players. On Saturday, April 18, 2009, Wasserman sent an email to AFL’s de facto commissioner informing him of his decision to terminate the L.A. Avengers’ membership in the Arena Football League.^[5]

The same year that he purchased the football team, Casey Wasserman started Wasserman (then-called Wasserman Media Group), a sports marketing and talent management company.^[2] In 2002, WMG acquired the sports marketing and naming-rights company Envision ^[6] and the action sports marketing and representation firm The Familie, based in Carlsbad, California. ^[7]

In 2004, WMG purchased 411 Productions and a few months later relaunched it as Studio 411, a sports entertainment film studio. The business was designed to provide financing, obtain sponsorships and arrange distribution in support of original productions.^[8] The company also made an unsuccessful bid to sign up enough athletes in BMX, skateboarding and freestyle motocross to form PGA-like sanctioning bodies in those sports.^[9]

In January 2006, WMG acquired the NBA and MLB sports agent business of Arn Tellem, a well-known sports agent who joined WMG as well. Several of Tellem’s sports agent colleagues also joined the company as part of the deal.^[10] Until he retired in June, 2015, Tellem was a principal at the company and ran one of its management groups.^[11] In November 2006, the company acquired soccer agency, SFX, in the UK.^[12]

In June 2007, WMG expanded its consulting and media and property capabilities by purchasing Raleigh, North Carolina–based OnSport.^[13] In early 2011, WMG bought London-based media rights manager and advisory firm Reel Enterprises.^[14] That year WMG expanded its golf talent roster by acquiring SFX Golf in April 2011.^[15]

In 2016, Wasserman Media Group rebranded as Wasserman and is frequently referred to as “Team Wass”.^[16] In 2021, he acquired Paradigm Agency’s music business.^[17] In 2023, Wasserman bought the management production company, Brillstein Entertainment Partners.^[18]

In 2015, the USOC selected Los Angeles as the American applicant for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Wasserman successfully led Los Angeles‘ 2017 bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics. He heads the city’s Olympic organizing committee.^[19]
On June 19, 2020, Wasserman reportedly wrote the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach to advocate for changes to be made to the controversial Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter which states: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”^[20] In the letter, Wasserman urged the IOC to amend the guidelines that support Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter to allow anti-racist advocacy on the Olympic stage and stated “Being anti-racist is not political.”^[21][22]

President Bach refuted the suggestion in an op-ed for The Guardian titled “The Olympics are about diversity and unity, not politics and profit. Boycotts don’t work, and athletes should be politically neutral.”^[23][24]

Wasserman had a close relationship with his grandfather. The two would have breakfast together every Saturday and Sunday from the time he was a child until his grandfather’s death in 2002.^[25]

He is divorced from music supervisor Laura Ziffren Wasserman,^[26] whose grandfather Paul Ziffren was a Democratic Party leader and chair of the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics Organizing Committee.^[27][28] They have two children.^[29]

In September 2025, Wasserman joined a search committee led by UCLA Bruins athletic director Martin Jarmond to assist with identifying their next head football coach.^[30]

Wasserman co-chaired a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on August 22, 2016.^[31] He has historically donated to Democratic political, but had by 2025 increasingly sought to ingratiate himself with the conservative right in the United States. Wasserman donated to some Republican candidates prior to the 2026 elections and organized a fundraiser for Senator Susan Collins, a Republican.^[32]

In 2026, files released by the Epstein Files Transparency Act revealed that he had exchanged flirtatious emails with Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003, which he said he “deeply regrets”.^[33][34]