The Rich Roll Podcast - Casey Wasserman On Leveraging Mentorship, Proving Success & Creating A Legacy

Episode Date: January 30, 2017

A force in business, civic affairs, politics, and philanthropy in Los Angeles and beyond, Casey Wasserman is perhaps best known as the chairman and CEO of Wasserman — one of the world's largest, most powerful, and most successful sports, entertainment and lifestyle marketing and management agencies, representing brands, properties and talent on a global basis. When he's not negotiating on behalf of Nike, ESPN, Andrew Luck or Russell Westbrook, he's either leading the charge to bring the 2024 Summer Olympic Games to Los Angeles as Chairman of LA 2024, or funding education, health, arts & human rights initiatives via his Wasserman Foundation philanthropic arm. Lovingly and painstakingly mentored throughout his childhood by his late grandfather Lew Wasserman — one of the most legendary Hollywood talent agents and studio executives of all time — Casey's love of business, sports and entrepreneurship was born early. By ten, he was a torch bearer during the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. By twelve, he was officially employed in professional sports as a ballboy for the Cleveland Browns. And by 24 he would not only own his first professional sports organization — the Los Angeles Avengers Arena League football team — he was named Chairman of the entire league. I've known Casey very casually for a couple years. What impresses me most isn't the success and accolades. Instead, it's how he consistently comports himself — with grounded self-awareness, honest humility, and a very present sense of what is most important in life. This is a great exchange about Casey's remarkable life. It's a conversation about business, entrepreneurship and risk. It's about the indelible power of mentorship. It's about creating a legacy. But most of all, it's a conversation about that which is required to pursue a life of purpose and meaning. I have tremendous respect for this amazing man. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich

The more successful you are, the more problems you deal with, and the more challenges you have, and the bigger company you have, and the bigger business you have, I mean, just stuff goes wrong. And that the key measure to success is how well you deal with the bad news and the problems, not how well you embrace the good news. And that inherently, the more successful people have organizations that are better at anticipating, communicating, learning from, growing from, and dealing with and surviving problems. That's Casey Wasserman, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody, what's happening?

What's going on? How are you? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host, and this is my podcast. Welcome or welcome back. This is the program where I have the good fortune of getting intimate and going long form, usually with some of the world's most intriguing thought leaders and positive change makers all across the globe. Really appreciate you guys tuning in today. Thank you so much for subscribing to the show on iTunes,

for sharing the show with your friends and your colleagues and your family members and your annoying uncle, all that good stuff. And big love to everybody who supports my work through Patreon and by making a habit of using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Really, really appreciate that. Really excited to share my conversation with Casey Wasserman on today's show. Casey's a really impressive guy. He's a business leader, a civic activist. He's a philanthropist.

a philanthropist, perhaps most well-known as the founder and CEO of Wasserman, which is one of the largest, most powerful, most successful sports marketing and talent management agencies in the world. These guys represent a gigantic percentage of the globe's most talented professional Olympic and extreme athletes. And you also might know Casey by his more recent work as chairman of LA 2024, which is the committee charged with lobbying to bring the 2024 Summer Olympic Games to Los Angeles. A couple other interesting things about Casey. In 1998, he purchased the Los Angeles Avengers Arena League football team, and then went on to become chairman of the entire Arena League of football, and he was only 24 years old. He's also the grandson of Lou Wasserman, who was one of the most famous Hollywood agents and studio chiefs of all time. This guy was a true visionary, a man I think we can fairly credit as almost single-handedly conceptualizing and crafting Hollywood as we know it today.

He's a man that meant a great deal to Casey, a mentor that he credits with his success, which is something we get into a bit on the podcast. But first, let's acknowledge the awesome organizations that make this show possible. So I've known Casey for a couple of years. Each time I connect with him, I'm just so impressed with how he handles himself. He's incredibly grounded and present, and I just enjoy his company. And this is a cool exchange about his life, about entrepreneurship, about his success, about balancing priorities, about legacy, and of course, about the Olympics. But it's also a short conversation. I think it's the shortest conversation I've ever had on this podcast in the history of the program.

It's not my typical deal. It's not Casey's fault. It's a scheduling thing. I only ended up having about 30 to 35 minutes with him. And, you know, it's tough to really do what I do in such a short window. But I didn't want to miss the opportunity to sit down with him. So I did my best to get the most out of it. That said, and because the show is so brief in comparison to my other shows, I wanted to mention two things.

The first is I'm going to throw up a midweek show on Thursday. It's a panel discussion between me and Marco Borges of 22 Days Nutrition. You might have remembered my full podcast with Marco. It must've been like two years ago. It was a really great one. He's gone on to become a really close friend and mentor to me. I just really dig this guy a lot.

And this is a panel discussion that took place at the Seed Food and Wine Festival in Miami a few months back. So again, I'm gonna put that up on Thursday of this week. And secondly, I thought I would do something I don't often do, which is share a little fan mail. I get a lot of mail, a lot of email, a lot of mail in the mail as well. And I can't reply to all of it, but I do read all of it. And I'm super honored by everyone who takes the time to reach out and share their story with me. It's just incredibly meaningful and moving to me. Anyway, I came across this one

letter that stood out a little bit, and I thought I'd share it. I'm going to keep it anonymous because I don't know if this person wants to be identified. But I'll just start with this. Rich, I am a 10-year veteran of the U.S. Army who now owns a fitness studio in blank area. I have been in a weird place in my life since leaving the military. My wife was pregnant with our first child when she was diagnosed with brain cancer last year. Since then, we have had our son, and she is undergoing chemo and radiation. In an effort to clean up our life and give her the best chance we can, we have made the switch to eating and living plant-based. I've been a heavy drinker for many a year, many years, and this was my way of dispelling emotions. I was introduced

to your podcast interview with David Goggins by an ultra running friend of mine. And since then, I have never been more clear about who I am or how I want to live my life. I'll be running my first ultra in May and I plan to run many, many more. I have made the switch to vegan and have never felt, never before found the inner me that I was searching for for so many years. I've begun writing and trying to tell my story as well. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today is a gift. And that is why it is called the present. Live in the moment. Live your life right now. Thank you for sharing your story. It helps people more than you know. And that's the end of the letter. So I have to thank you for sending me that. I just, I love that. And truly, this is why I do what I do.

Okay. Should we talk to Casey? Let's talk to Casey. So thanks so much, man. Appreciate you taking a few minutes to talk to me today. You got a lot on your plate right now, so I can't imagine how busy you are. You were just downstairs dealing with Olympic stuff. Yep, obviously my other job, I wouldn't call one my day job or my night job.

They both seem to be pretty full-time and pretty concurrent. But obviously my other job is being chairman of LA 2024, which is the United States bid for the 2024 Summer Games that we'd love to bring back to Los Angeles. Yeah, so let's unpack that a little bit. I mean, you just got back from Cotter, right? I did. We were there. It was our first of three presentations to different various groups

of the Olympic movement. So this was the National Olympic Committees from around the world. It was their annual meeting. So each of the three bid cities, us, Paris, and Budapest, had 20 minutes.

That presentation, much more technical in nature, so much more about the details of your plan. There was a little bit of touchy-feely. We had some, maybe more than others, giving the message.

Because of the election? The election, we had Allison Felix delivering a message that I don't think people expected her to deliver. And our mayor's an incredible spokesperson for our efforts and a great representative of our bid, our city, and the country. And we had a good first presentation.

The next one's next summer. In Switzerland? Yeah, in Switzerland. And the final one's in Lima, Peru in September of 2017. And then they'll vote that afternoon. Right. So Rome dropped out. What happened there?

There are certain things you're not allowed to talk about, right? We're not supposed to talk about our competitors. Look, Rome dropped out because the mayor of Rome came out very publicly and said it was not something that she supported or that Rome should be supporting as a city and as a city government, and that makes an Olympic bid almost untenable. And we were sad to see them go. A great bid team, Italian Olympic Committee is really wonderful.

We had a great kind of interaction with them as we've moved around the Olympic world and sad to see them go, but now there's three of us. Right. So walk me through a little bit about what it means to be chairman of this big bid. I mean, what are the responsibilities that you're shouldering and what are the challenges that you have to face in order to, you know, lobby this bureaucratic international institution to sway in your favor? I think we have three main responsibilities. And as chairman, it's my job to either handle them or direct them or empower people to get them done.

The first is to deliver a technical plan. And that is a fully compliant, fully operationalized, fully mapped out, if you will, plan to host an Olympic Games in 2024. That is every venue, but not just identifying the venue, a lease with every venue. It is the Olympic Village. It's a media village. It's an international broadcast center.

It's security and transportation and safety services and all that it entails to host an Olympic Games for 17 days. So we have to deliver that technical plan. That, in its final form, is due in February of 2017. We've delivered two-thirds of it. I mean, they've had it broken up into stages. And in L.A., I think we have a truly unique way to present a plan in that we don't have to build any of the venues that are traditionally

sort of the white elephants or the burdens around Olympic Games. So with the plan we deliver, we'll have a budget that is certain, a plan that is going to be the plan that we use in 2024. And so our view is no surprises. What they see is what they will get and will cost what we tell them it's going to cost. And that's unique in the Olympic world. But that's one responsibility. The second responsibility is to make sure we stay engaged with the city of Los Angeles, the Southern California community, California, and to some extent the country. And that's both at a community level and at a political level.

We obviously need the community to be supportive. We have the great fortune of having a successful 84 games, and there are enough people in Los Angeles who remember or have connectivity to that that are extremely supportive of what we're doing. We have 88% approval rating in LA, and that's really unique in the Olympic movement. When we just talked about Rome, we had a mayor say, Rome shouldn't be hosting games. We have the exact opposite. People- Right, Garcetti's all about it. Garcetti is, and people in LA not only are excited about, but they embrace the idea of hosting Olympic games, and that's unique.

Well, 84 was such a watershed time for the history of Los Angeles as a city. And it wasn't that, it wasn't so long ago that it doesn't reside in the memories of people that have lived here. Correct. And if I lived in any of the city, I couldn't say that, right? LA is unique in that way. And so we take advantage of that support to really tell our story to the world. And that support is both political, which has been great, led by the mayor, but the city council, the county supervisors, the sort of the community organizers, everyone has been really wonderful. And obviously the community in general has been very supportive. So those two things, but important to remember, those two things will get us zero votes with the IOC. In the end, there are 94 IOC members who vote. And as our mayor has described, it's a two-year campaign with 94 voters.

And our job is, and I believe like any campaign, those 94 voters aren't going to vote because our technical plan was the best. And they're not going to vote because L.A. is their favorite city in the world. They're going to vote for the people that they know, they like, they trust and respect. And that's my job. And is it a majority wins? It is a majority. So the way it works is if you don't get a majority, if no city gets a majority on the first round,

the low vote getter gets removed, and then you vote again. Ah, I got you. And it's unique with three cities. Obviously, the opportunity to win on our first ballots increases. There have been ballots where there have been six cities, and it's taken five or six rounds to get to a winner. Three cities is at most two rounds, obviously. And so that's our plan. That culminates in September and that will have been a two-year process. Yeah, it's crazy. I saw the sort of promotional video that was sort of a bird's eye view of kind of walking you through

all the different venues and how it's all going to map out and everything like that. It's amazing that it's so sort of conceptualized to such a large extent this far in advance. But I would imagine that plays into the favor of Los Angeles, given that, you know, by all accounts, like Sochi and Rio were pretty controversial venues that, you know, didn't exactly go off without issues along the way. Correct. And for us, the fact that we have the infrastructure and the venues is not the reason I think we can win or should win. It's what having those things allows us to focus on is what's unique. So not having to build a village means for seven years, so from September of 2017 to the summer of 2024, we can focus on what's the experience of an athlete in that village.

It's not that most people don't think about what the experience of an athlete in the village is, is that most people don't have either the time or the money to focus on it because they're too focused on building it. You have to build a village that hosts 17,500 athletes for 17 days. UCLA has that many students who move in every September into those dorms every year. So that's not our challenge. Right. The village exists right across the street. Correct. Westwood Village. Correct. So that experience has to be extraordinary. We don't have to build a basketball arena. Staples Center is one of the great arenas of the world. So what's the experience of a fan going to that? What's the experience for Olympic athletes, We don't have to build a basketball arena. Staples Center is one of the great arenas of the world. So what's the experience of a fan going to that?

What's the experience for Olympic athletes who come here or Olympic federations who come here to train? How many training facilities do you need? You need a lot in a city. And L.A. is such a treasure trove of training facilities. There's tracks everywhere. There's swimming pools everywhere. There's facilities. There's gyms. There's infrastructure here that is truly

unique in the world. And then you take what I think is really our secret weapon, USC and UCLA. No city in the world has two cities, two universities of that size and that prowess and athletics with 10 miles from each other. That is truly unique. So what is the achilles heel like what's the biggest challenge that you think la faces our challenge is that uh uh in in the past american bids for an olympic games have behaved an arrogant american approach and this is an organization that's not receptive to that and so our our challenge is to show people that we're different. This is a different kind of bid at a different time from a different kind of city. And we're fortunate enough to have Mayor Garcetti, who's 45, myself, who's 42. We are a young, different face of America. We are a different

city. L.A., as you know, has probably never been hotter as a city. Food, fashion, art, I mean, what's going on here is truly maybe unique. Just forward-facing technology, too. And so it is the culmination and the combination of where creativity and innovation collide. What was the climate in Qatar in the wake of the election? I would imagine that would be a challenge. It was a challenge. To be fair,

a lot of questions. And it's not something we avoided. We came out and said, well, first of all, let's be clear. In the United States, Olympic bids aren't dependent on politicians. We are unique in that way. Obviously, we'll have a host city contract with the city of LA. But this is a privately designed, privately funded, and privately managed organization by people who know how to run businesses at that scale. This is not a political operation. So while the federal government is important, we are not a government entity, and that's different than other Olympic bids in both this race and many races in the past.

And that's the difference of the U.S. And in the past, that's been a negative, and maybe now it could be a positive. Given the issues with politics that you described in Rio, I mean, it's complicated. And so we had a lot of questions, and Allison Felix's message was very clear. You know, don't doubt us. What did you learn from your experience in Rio? Like, what did you take away from that that's informing the campaign? your experience in Rio?

What did you take away from that that's informing the campaign? The thing that was most striking to me about Rio is the Olympics are an event that operates on a scale that you can't prepare for. So the opening ceremonies are on a Friday night and Saturday morning with something like 5,000 athletes, 30,000 volunteers, 100,000 spectators, and like 10,000 coaches all depart to go to events at the same time that first morning.

And that is unprecedented in events. And then that happens every day for 17 days. And to see the scale of that, because I hadn't been to a summer games in a while, to see the scale of that in person I hadn't been to a Summer Games in a while, to see the scale of that in person and to think about that scale was amazing. And the other thing that was fun is to be at a Games and be at Bid City, everything I went to,

from a little cocktail reception to opening ceremonies in between, all I could think about was, okay, in LA this would be here and in LA we could do this here or this is how we could do something different in 2024 in LA and that was a this here. Or this is how we could do something different in 2024 in LA. And that was a fun way to experience the games.

Do you feel the pressure or the legacy of Uberoth and what he did in 84? Because that was, I mean, he really ushered in the era of the profitable Olympics, wasn't it? I think that was the first profitable Olympics ever. It was, and there's no question for all all olympic hosts and for obviously olympic hosts in la he has set the bar high uh and he's still around he's around uh he's a dear friend he's been a mentor to me in my life for a long time having nothing to do with the olympics and has continued to be so and a great resource for us to to call on he he has been the first to say this is your time and your bid and you're doing a great job, but I'm here if you need me for advice and counsel.

And he's been wonderful. That's cool. Yeah. So on a day-to-day basis, what do you have to babysit to kind of move this thing along? Well, I think between the big hurdles are us. February is the stage three deliverable, as it describes, as the final sort of culmination of our plan. In April, we have what's called an evaluation commission visit. So it's the final sort of culmination of our plan.

In April, we have what's called an evaluation commission visit. That's where the IOC sends a dozen IOC members and about a dozen subject matter experts to L.A. for three days to really— Snoop around. Yeah, it's not a snoop. It's a very open, transparent process, but it's a very deep dive into the specifics of your plan, venues, budget, the whole thing, transportation, all the sort of various pieces. That's a big hurdle and then from you know from really there on you're focused on a couple more presentations and engaged with that olympic family to really get to know them and and understand them and and vice versa and so that's a pretty all-encompassing uh 10 months yeah well it's exciting man and for you i mean this goes back to

early childhood, right? Like I read that you were a torchbearer when you were like 10. Oh, there's a picture right over there. I was a 10-year-old. Like what segment did you run with? I don't remember. I knew it was early in the morning. It's the one thing I do remember.

But I was 10 years old, and I ran with a torch. I still have the torch. And, you know, 84 was, if someone was in LA, it was a magical time in Los Angeles in 1984. Well, best of luck with that, man. Thank you, we're excited. And as we talk about, you know, sort of your past and legacy and all of that,

I can't help but notice your grandfather's glasses sitting behind you in a lucite case peering over your shoulder. So, you know, I'm hoping you're open to talking a little bit about, you know, the impact of him on your life and kind of how he acted as a mentor and how he kind of infuses the culture that you've built here at Wasserman. So, look, my grandfather was an incredible person, obviously an incredibly successful businessman.

was an incredible person, obviously incredibly successful businessman. But the most amazing thing he did in my eyes was my mom is his only child. And I had no relationship with my dad. And it was clear to him, frankly, much sooner than it was clear to me. And at the age of three, me being three, he made the conscious decision to play that role in my life to be that father figure to me and you know if you think about it he didn't have to do that um he was at the height of his power the height of his business and maybe explain to people who don't know kind of so my grandfather was the chairman and ceo of mca universal you know the company the universal pictures universal studios mca records you know one of the first really truly entertainment driven conglomerates MCA Universal, the company that Universal Pictures, Universal Studios, MCA Records, one of the first really truly entertainment-driven conglomerates. And he was the CEO of that company and chairman for 63 years.

So he ran that company from in the 30s till the mid-90s. And he was running a global entertainment empire. But I think it's fair to say he really shaped what became modern Hollywood. No question. He is often referred to as the king of Hollywood. He was, you know, at his funeral they called him, you know, Olympus standing on top of Mount Zeus. I mean, Zeus standing on top of Mount Olympus. Sorry, he was that figure in early Hollywood, no question,

with obviously some others, but he really shaped the industry in many ways. I mean, created the modern package for an actor and a movie and a director. So he created a lot of things that exist today and are taken for granted. But he made that conscious decision to be my father figure, and that meant a lot in my life. Because if you think about it, we started, he took me to breakfast every Saturday and Sunday, without fail, from the time I was three

until a month before he died. It's about 23 years. He came to every one of my Little League games, he would come to my tennis matches, and that was before iPhones and, you know, connectivity and email. I mean, he would leave his office, drive himself in on a Thursday night, come to my little league game and sit in the stands and watch. And so I would not be the person I am today, nor have had the life I've had if he hadn't made the conscious decision to have that role. Because obviously as a father now, I understand the value of an engaged parent. And to me, to make that decision, having no idea who I was, what I was, how it was going to be, good, bad, or ugly, was a really remarkable thing. And he never wavered for one day, not one second for one day.

And so he was my mentor. He, in many ways, was my best friend. He was, in many ways, most people think he was my father. I can't tell you how many people say, oh, I used to work for your father. I knew your father. And look, I get it. They mean him. But no one realized he was my grandfather in many ways.

So it was an incredible thing for me. And he was a great storyteller. And so the lessons I took from him were sort of derived from the stories he would tell about his life and his experiences. He wasn't so much, you should do this or do that. It was very specifically not that. It was much more about, you know, his experiences and what I could draw from those. And there isn't a day that goes by, whether it's those glasses looking over my shoulder or not, that I don't think about something he said or tell someone in this company or in a client. One of his sort of things that made him tick or lessons he learned. If you could distill down some of those kind of fundamental principles

or sort of guiding ideas that he instilled in you, what would you say to that? I think one of the great lessons I learned from him was, and I used to think it was the exact opposite, but what I quickly realized as I got older was that the more successful you are, the more problems you deal with, and the more challenges you have, and the bigger company you have, and the bigger business you have, just stuff goes wrong. And that the key measure to success is how well you deal with the bad news and the problems, not how well you embrace the good news. And that inherently, the more successful people have organizations that are better at anticipating, communicating, learning from, growing from, and dealing with and surviving problems.

And he was a big believer in that. He used to always say, you know, bad news gets worse, so you better just deal with it. And if you think about it, it's true, right? I get paid to deal with problems. Good news takes care of itself. And if you think about human nature, whether it's with your kids or your partner or at work, most people's knee-jerk reaction is to stick their head in the sand and hope that bad news goes away. And the truth is it doesn't. And so that was him.

He always created a culture at his company, even in our family, that you communicate about those problems and that's how you deal with them and fix them. If you don't communicate and deal with them, they get worse and they can be really damaging. Right, so in terms of like kind of the, how things roll downhill from the corner office here to all of your employees, is it sort of, take responsibility for when things go left and just solve it quickly? Or what is the, what is the culture that you've created?

The culture is that you are not, it's not about being dinged for communicating bad news and problems or weakness. It's about being rewarded and encouraged and supported when you do those things. And that's a real mind shift for an employee. And so as soon as they understand that, then you create a culture where people know each other, they trust each other, they respect each other, and that they know they have their support for each other. It's not a fear-based workforce. Because look, everybody has problems every day. And you have to learn how to deal with it.

Right. All right, so now you're sitting on top of this behemoth agency marketing enterprise empire that you've built. You started in 2002, right? And you're now like the largest agency? The largest sports agent in the world, yeah. It's crazy.

It is crazy. It is crazy. It's unbelievable. And it's very interesting times right now. Things are shifting and moving very quickly. The tectonic plates of media and sports as a business seem to be like sand underneath your feet, right? And as such a large enterprise, how are you able to kind of maneuver with that and

anticipate what's next? And how does that inform how you work with your clients and the corporate clients that you guys deal with? Yeah, look, I couldn't agree more. It is a really interesting time in the world, obviously, but in the media business. It is a really interesting time in the world, obviously, but in the media business, and sports is a gigantic, if not the biggest part of the media business, so it's a really unique time. We are in the midst of a significant paradigm shift or several. And one of the things I think is really important for us

when we communicate with clients or potential clients is a couple things. One, my name's on the door. I own the business. I'm here every day. I'm 42 years old. Our interests are absolutely aligned with our clients, and that's important. We have no other interest other than our client's success, and we think that's pretty unique. We have no other driving mechanism. The second thing is the scale of our operation, both in breadth and depth in the areas we do operate in, provides us a level of experience and history in dealing with challenges that we think is very unique and valuable to our clients. And so you take those two things together, and the message we really send is, yes are changing yes things are different and complicated but you are represented by someone whose only interest is in your interest and who has the experience and the and the caliber of people at the company to support

you through ups and downs and that's very simple and and how does this specific kind of guidance of the clients shift when you have like media culture transitioning from being very distribution focused to being more consumer facing, right? And with social media and the like and with every athlete having to worry about his or her personal brand and how that looks and how they're presenting themselves directly to their fan base has to, I mean, you're coming from a business that was traditionally like, we negotiate these contracts and we do these endorsement deals. And now it's like this amorphous goo of all these different things

that you have to kind of take on, right? Yeah, so as a starting point, look, sports has always not only survived but thrived in paradigm shifts and through the last bunch of decades and I have no doubt that that will continue and so sports has always been a unique way to engage with the consumer because of its nature of its live it's an evergreen product it's pretty resistant to most technological changes or embraces them in unique ways. And so I think that is going to continue.

What that means is that the revenue that comes in the sport may come from different places, but the revenue that comes in at the top of the funnel will continue, which means it flows through the system and ultimately players are a partial beneficiary of that as it relates to the way their economics work in their sport. Yes, there are a lot more things for a player to be cognizant of and aware of and concerned about and focused on, and as an agency that is representative of their interest, it's incumbent upon us to have a diversity of people who are connected with those clients, who have a diversity of skills and experience,

to be able to support them. So in very specific terms, in other words, here's how you deal with Snapchat. Correct, social media. Should I be on Instagram? All that kind of crazy stuff. No question. All that stuff from a philanthropic standpoint.

What does it mean to have a philanthropic initiative? How do you engage? What's a good approach? What's a bad approach? How do you measure success? All those issues, we have a massive legal department to support them in contractual negotiations. So we have the ability to support our clients across the board in all those various ways with what we think are best-in-class service, and that's important.

When you're looking to take on a new athlete client, does the social media landscape play into that decision, like beyond just stats on the field or performance? It's part of the puzzle, I would say. We're much more focused on, look, we want them to be the caliber and the character of the person is what's important. And usually those two things inform how they present themselves in things like social media.

So I'm a believer that it's not an accident the kind of athletes that we represent and therefore not an accident for the kind of athletes we don't represent. And it's not an indictment of the ones we don't represent, but we're very proud of the athletes we represent and we want to represent them to the best of our ability and attract a lot more like them. And if you had to articulate what makes Wasserman different from other big sports agency X, Y, You know, how do you answer that?

I think it goes back to a couple of things. One, again, we are not driven by short-term based on some alternate ownership or economic structure. We are absolutely aligned and there to do what's in our client's best interest, even if it's not in our economic best interest. We have a horizon that's much longer term than I think most. And I think we have a level of experience and success with a variety of clients around the world that is unique in the space. We are the largest soccer

agent in the world, the largest basketball agent in the world the largest basketball agent in the world the largest action sports agent in the world the largest women's sports agent in the world you go down the list that level of experience that breadth of success that caliber of talent that all passes on to the next generation of athletes we represent it's crazy man when i look back at your career it's pretty fascinating to see how you kind of jumped into the sports world as a guy who loves sports and was fascinated by the business of sports but didn't have any experience other than a short stint as an investment banker. That's true. And at age, how old were you, like 24 when you bought the Avengers?

I was 24 when we bought Arena Football Team. And as I said, it doesn't matter whether you're 24 or 64, there's no manual. And you just got to kind of roll. They just gave it to you and like, here you go. You had no office. There's no infrastructure. You had to figure the whole thing out, right? No greater moment of anxiety than the next day.

It was like 1998, October of 1998. We were awarded an expansion franchise for LA. And I woke up the next day and I was like, uh-oh. We have no office, no employees, no coach. A Staples Center wasn't even built yet. No practice facility, no team name, no tickets, no employees. The team wasn't even named. And it's like, okay, but what do you do?

I didn't even know. There's no manual. How did you solve that? It was just kind of baby steps you just kind of it's you got to put one foot in front of the other and just start moving and you know start to talk to people who worked in the sport in the league and you just kind of slowly kind of grind your way through it and you know the one thing you learn uh that sticks with me today is the one thing you can't buy more of is time we had to play a game in april 2000 whether we liked it or not

and whether we were ready or not and that'll drive you to get a lot of work done I would imagine that experience though you know I mean how incredibly valuable to have that and and to know that you could build something like that so so when it came time to creating this agency to understand like look I did this other thing from nothing 100 it was a huge you know I like to describe it as an unbelievable way to get my PhD in sports and by making every mistake and learning all the lessons firsthand. And it didn't matter whether it was an arena football team or a sports agency. It was an entrepreneurial opportunity in the business of sports, and it was an incredible opportunity.

And why go into the agency business? Why not move segue over into the NFL? I mean, did that experience make you want to be an NFL owner more or less? Look, I mean, I love the NFL. The opportunity for what we do now was really about how can we find something to buy or do where we can prove our value and our ability. The first thing we bought was an action sports agency.

It was Teeny based in Carlsbad. I love the diversity of what I do. And so we bought this little business. It's grown 20-fold since we bought it in 2002. And it allowed us to get into the sports business on a different than a franchise business and grow in lots of ways we sort of imagined and many which we didn't. What I love about our business though is the diversity of it. Running a team is an incredible experience. You are in many ways defined by what happens on

the field of play. That it can be both wonderful and torturous. But the business of running a team is pretty defined and limited. Not good or bad, it just is what it is. And I love the diversity of what we do and the flexibility we have when we do it. And that's what gets me excited. I love the team ownership. And maybe one day if I sold this business, maybe what I'd go do is buy a team and do something that I did before. for now I couldn't imagine doing anything else and I love what I do well it's cool because you know in addition and beyond the athletes that you represent you are working with all kinds of crazy you know fortune 500 corporate clients you're dealing with naming rights on buildings you're involved in events like it's across the board and it transcends

sport too like you were doing stuff with like London Fashion Week, and things that have nothing to do with, you know, football or basketball or golf. And that's again, goes back to the sort of opportunity set and the diversity. So working with brands, sort of across their strategic marketing initiatives, that's not specific to sports,

that's across strategic marketing. Oftentimes our relationship will start in sports, but it quickly moves to music and fashion and film and entertainment and television. And the brands we're fortunate enough to work with are incredible and give us a great line of sight into the business, the way brands are thinking about connecting with consumers, talking about their products, leveraging culture to tell that story. And it puts us in a really interesting place in the ecosystem. Cool. I know you've got to go here in a couple of minutes, but a really interesting place in the ecosystem. Cool. I know you got to go here in a couple of minutes,

but a couple quick questions, if you'll indulge me. With this transition in how we're consuming content and sports in particular, where do you see this going five, 10 years from now? When you can stream an NFL game on Thursday night on Twitter

and everything's moving to the phone, and with the exception of the Super Bowl, if you're watching a game on television, every time a commercial comes on, you're face-planted in the phone trying to see what's going on that you're missing or engaging in the conversation that's happening around the event that you're watching.

Where is this heading that maybe you can see that we can't see? Well, look, I think highly produced, incredibly presented on beautiful products, sports isn't going to change. The Super Bowl will look much better, no matter what, on your 60-inch flat screen in your living room than it will on your phone. But the ability to connect with 5 billion people around the world who are going to have smartphones in their hands, and what does that mean?

Does it mean they're watching a whole game, or does it mean they're watching highlights? Does it mean that's how they buy their tickets and get excited? Does it mean that's how they manage their interactions with the team, that they're playing fantasy sports, that they're buying product, that they're selling product, whatever it is. I think the sort of smartphone will be an important part of the relationship a fan has with its team or an athlete. But I think in many ways, sitting down and watching a game in its pure form is going to be incredible. It doesn't mean that a phone may not provide secondary information,

augmented reality, artificial intelligence around that experience. I don't think the experience of watching a game, whether it's in person or on TV in its sort of passive form, is going to change. I think what those devices can do to complement that is going to change dramatically. And I think when you're away from that screen or you're away from that arena,

your ability to connect is going to be significantly enhanced by that device. It's going to be interesting to watch it play out. It's certainly exciting. I watch with my kids, their experience of engaging with content is dramatically different than mine. I can tell you that. Oh, there's no question about it. And a zero tolerance policy for being sold anything. No question. No question. I think that's a very good point. Yeah. So, all right, last thing before I let you go. When you look over the course of your career,

if you had to distill down what you attribute your arc of success to, beyond the legacy of your grandfather, is there something distinctive or unique about, whether it's your vision or your management style that you can kind of put a tack in and say, this is what got me here? Look, I don't think success happens in a moment. I think success happens over a long period of time and that you don't realize you're successful or that something is successful until a moment in time and then it feels like it

happened in a moment but the truth is I'm a believer that success happens over a long period of time and for success to happen over a long period of time a few things have to happen I think you have to have staying power underrated I think you have to be relentlessly consistent which which is underrated. Both of which your grandfather would work with. No question. I think you have to be able to create a culture that allows your employees to succeed. And I think you have to be able to manage and survive

and deal with and grow from problems and bad news. And if you can do those things, you will, over a long period of time, make more steps forward than you make backwards. And when you look back, you'll not quite know how you got there, but you'll wake up. So today in 2016, we're a company with 700 employees. When I started in 2002, there were two of us. If you told me that in 14 years, you'd have 700 employees and do the revenue you do and touching the kind of clients you touch, I would have said there's no way and I couldn't even tell you how you could get there.

And yet, I couldn't look back and point to any one moment that created this opportunity. It was the accumulation of a lot of things, both successful and not successful, that allowed us to be here today. And so I'm a big believer that staying consistent over a long period of time is ultimately the greatest way to prove success.

Brick by brick. Brick by brick. Brick by brick. Patience, persistence. Old school. Like training, my friend, right? Exactly. Exactly. All right.

Well, good talking to you, man. Thank you. I appreciate the time and wish you all the best. Thanks, man. Peace. Plants. Short but sweet, right? It was good. I hope you guys enjoyed that uh i really like casey hopefully i can cajole him into coming back on the podcast at some future point and maybe we can delve into

matters a little bit more deeply uh once again i'll be back on thursday with the second episode this week a panel discussion between me and marco Borges from the Seed Festival in Miami a couple months back. And until then, make a point, please, of checking out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. Got lots of links and resources from today's conversation with Casey to take your infotainment,

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Plants. Thank you.