Just a few weeks ago, Ben Sutton was in his element. He spent one sweltering August day at Auburn and the next at Georgia.
Both schools are nearing the end of their multimedia rights agreements, and Sutton was on campus trying to persuade them to extend with IMG College.
According to his friends, that’s where Sutton is at his best, throwing his arm around an athletic director and saying, “How ya doing, brutha?” in his eastern North Carolina accent.
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Ben Sutton (right), with Wake Forest AD Ron Wellman, built his business on relationships.
Photo by: IMG COLLEGE
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“Ben built a very successful business based on relationships and doing what you say you’re going to do,” said Doug Gillin, who worked for Sutton for 15 years and now serves at Appalachian State’s AD. “Ben always said, ‘Do the right thing, the right way, at the right time,’ even if it didn’t always make the most business sense.”
For the last two-plus decades, athletic directors who had a question about collegiate marketing and media called Sutton, who built ISP Sports into an industry-leading collegiate marketing business and sold it to IMG College in 2010. Sutton has been IMG College’s president for the last five years, overseeing a company of 1,000 employees.
But Sutton is stepping back from the day-to-day business and into the role of chairman emeritus, something he’s been telling clients over the past few weeks.
“Ben’s move to chairman emeritus reflects his lifelong engagement in and his passion for college sports,” said NCAA President Mark Emmert, who has become a friend. “Ben has been instrumental in creating tremendous opportunities for our athletics programs, which has created great support for the students.”
Sutton’s involvement at IMG College won’t end — he’s still working under a multiyear contract — but it will be curtailed significantly as he spends time working on fundraising campaigns for his alma mater, Wake Forest, and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. He’s on the board for both entities.
As Sutton says, he’s seen the sausage made since he founded ISP in 1992, and he’s spent the last 23 years helping forge the multimedia rights business. He’s spent more than 3,000 nights on the road and attended close to 500 college football games since he founded ISP. Now it’s time to do something else.
“Ben’s a throwback to the days when relationships were the most important part of a deal,” said Georgia AD Greg McGarity. “He has an old-school way of operating, and it’s been very effective for him.”
Sutton is handing off the top job to Jason Lublin, WME-IMG global chief operating officer who also now carries the title of IMG College president (see related story).
“I don’t want to make the sausage anymore,” Sutton said. “It takes a toll on you emotionally and physically.”
Sitting in his corner office of IMG College’s Winston-Salem, N.C., headquarters, Sutton looked relaxed last week in a lavender golf shirt and khaki pants. He said he’s lost 30 pounds over the summer since he began running again.
Relaxed was not often a word used to describe Sutton previously. He attended five college football games last year on Labor Day weekend, the traditional start to the season. When asked how many games he planned to attend this past weekend, Sutton shrugged and said he wasn’t sure.
Sutton, who’s been known to attend two or three college football games in a day at IMG College client schools, will still be around, mostly going to games with Lublin to make introductions.
IMG College’s clients are used to Sutton’s style, so ADs are admittedly curious about the future.
“The special thing about Ben when it comes to college athletics, he understands that every deal may not work,” said Arkansas AD Jeff Long. “Every campus has its own culture, and there might be a deal that works at one institution but not another. Ben understands that and it will be missed. I hope the new leadership will embrace that approach.”
Sutton’s step back from IMG College is coming a year later than he had planned. IMG College actually began the hunt to hire a new president last fall, and ESPN executive Burke Magnus was offered the job, but the network would not release him from his contract.
Tim Pernetti, the former Rutgers AD, earlier this year was hired to oversee multimedia for IMG College. That still left Sutton in the president’s position until Lublin was identified as the successor.
That change in leadership will enable Sutton to focus more on fundraising, especially at Wake Forest. His $25 million gift to the school will be the impetus to start construction on the Sutton Center, which will house football facilities, a nutrition center, a sports performance lab and offices. It’s part of Sutton’s commitment to take Wake’s football facilities from the bottom of the ACC to the top.
Sutton grew up in a small farming community near Murfreesboro, N.C., and attended Wake on a need-based scholarship, during which time he also was the head cheerleader. Sutton eventually earned his law degree and worked in the school’s athletic department for nine years before starting ISP, so the ties to his school, which also was ISP’s first client, run deep.
Mark Dyer, who oversees IMG College’s ancillary businesses in ticketing and stadium seating, was running the multimedia rights business at Host Communications in 1992 when he first talked to Sutton.
“Ben had just started ISP and had just one or two schools,” Dyer recalled. “But after talking to him, he had you believing he had 10 times that many. His level of conviction and confidence was so impressive. It’s not surprising what he built.”
