As the grandson of legendary Hollywood producer Lew Wasserman, Casey Wasserman clearly has dealmaking in his blood. BusinessWeek profiles the 32-year-old Wasserman’s rise as a sports marketing mogul, with a particular focus on a variety of digital deals he’s spearheading. His company, Wasserman Media Group is in negotiations with ESPN, which plans to feature content from WMG’s forthcoming SportNet channel on its online action-sports site EXPN.
WMG is also in talks with Comcast about arranging VOD clips of attractions like motocross races. SportNet also plans to load the site with coverage of amateur events such as pre-Olympic swimming, track and field, and gymnastics. As we’ve reported in the past, its financing unit, WMG Investments, has backed companies like high school social net Takkle.
With online and cable deals starting to bear fruit, WMG also has its own DVD production and distribution arm designed to keep feeding that tree. That unit, Studio411, which was acquired by WMG nearly three years ago, will allow Wasserman to provide shows and other content that he can put online and offer to cable and iTunes.
In building SportNet, he’ll need his grandfather’s touch as he takes on some major competitors. One competitor turns out to be the U.S. Olympic Committee, which is trying to secure online rights from some of the same governing bodies with which WMG is negotiating. And then there are the offshoots of traditional media companies. Fox Cable Networks’ Fuel channel, offers similar action-sports services that SportNet does, for example.