Sports > November 6, 2008

By Phillip Brame | Staff writer

A New Vision When Wake Forest alumnus Ben Sutton left his position as director of sports marketing in the Wake Forest Athletic Department in 1992, he set out to create a multimedia rights company that would ultimately change the entire industry of sports management.

The company he founded, ISP Sports, began as a small regional operation with a small number of partner universities. In addition to the University, Sutton soon signed Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech as the company’s second and third properties respectively. Just 16 years later, ISP Sports has grown exponentially; the company is now responsible for the radio broadcasts and multimedia rights of over 50 universities.

For any of its properties, ISP will produce the on air game broadcasts and coach’s shows of the respective school’s athletic teams in one of its two broadcast studios. ISP also coordinates advertising sales and helps with a wide range of print and Internet operations.

The ISP Sports network now stretches to all four corners of the continental United States. Universities that entrust their multimedia rights to ISP include ACC schools Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Boston College, Clemson and Miami.

The scope of the schools that are in the ISP Sports network extends beyond major conferences such as the Big East, Conference USA and the Pac-10, to the football independent Notre Dame as well as smaller local area universities such as Appalachian State and Elon.

Every school involved in the network follows roughly the same formula established by the Wake Forest model Sutton developed in the early days of the company. As Sutton, the CEO and founder of ISP, explained, the decision made by the Athletic Department of Wake Forest to partner with the newly formed company has yielded far reaching benefits for the university.

“We underwrite the purchase of new equipment like the video boards at BB&T Field or the Joel Coliseum,” Sutton said. “We also make contributions to the student-athletic scholarship fund, publish gameday and Deacon Club publications, and create fan enhancement promotions and programs.”

Senior Vice President and Wake Forest alumnus Bill Merrifield was one of the first hires by Sutton.

“The whole idea was ‘one-stop shopping’,” Merrifield said. “If I’m a media buyer such as a local business or national corporation, the old way was for one person representing Wake Forest to sell them program advertising, then another for radio, then another for signage.”

Merrifield also feels that the company helps to take some of the burden for profit off of the university, a useful resource for a school such as Wake that lacks a large, regionally-centered alumni base.

“In our model, we work with Wake on their multimedia rights with respect to their advertising and marketing; ISP buys rights from Wake Forest and resells them,” Merrifield said. “Our job is to go out and maximize revenue for Wake Forest.”

For Wake Forest Athletics Director Ron Wellman, ISP has been a mainstay in his work as the head of Demon Deacon athletics.

Wellman was hired soon after the decision was made to partner with ISP and from his perspective, having a company like ISP integrated with his department has proven to be a valuable partnership.

“It gives us the opportunity to align ourselves with different sponsors that we would not be able to do if we did it by ourselves,” Wellman said. “National advertisers do not like to buy with one institution; they would rather work with a company with many properties to get a better value for their advertising dollar.”

Although the company now is exclusively concentrated in collegiate athletics, the early days of the company saw it pursue other ventures such as the Vantage Championships, a professional golf tournament that was held in Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, N.C., in addition to other projects outside of collegiate sports.

“You have to do other things before you figure out what you’re good at,” Merrifield said. “We figured out we were good at collegiate sports and from a relationship and growth opportunity perspective, collegiate athletics was our best market.”

Humble Beginnings

When one gazes at ISP’s newly-constructed, state-of-the-art studio on North Trade Street, it is quite challenging to picture such a successful company beginning its journey in a Reynolda Village barn.

Such is the case with ISP. From there the company moved to offices on Knollwood Street before settling, for a time, in an office on Country Club Drive, As Wake Forest Studio Host and Assistant Production Manager Alan York recalls, the new luxuries of the Trade Street location are greatly appreciated in comparison to his old working space.

“Our first studios were closets really,” York said. “We started with three cubicles, and it would be a stretch to say they were three feet wide – you had to stand up to do your segments.”

At this point early in the current decade, the company still had around 20 partner schools.

Soon it became clear that a much larger workspace for the company was necessary, and the acquisition of a small house next to the offices provided temporary relief.

After a thorough renovation, “The Radio House” (as it came to be known), served the company for around four years and allowed for 15 broadcasts to originate from the studio at one time.

By comparison, the Trade Street facilities are capable of producing 40 broadcasts at once. Each studio host has a much larger booth for producing the broadcast.

Sutton also feels that the new studios are helping to revitalize Downtown Winston Salem.

“Without a vibrant downtown core, a community has no chance to prosper and grow,” Sutton said. “About a year ago ISP, followed the early arts, business and restaurateur pioneers and moved its corporate headquarters to Trade Street and we are seeing other businesses are following suit. I’d also like to think that our national business and reputation brings positive recognition to Winston-Salem.”

A Formula for Success

The growth of ISP can be attributed to the company’s ability to replicate its model, which has achieved success with its early properties.

A typical ISP broadcast will run from the site of the game or coach’s show where a play-by-play announcer and a color commentator will cover the game and send the audio feedback to one of ISP’s two studios (either Winston-Salem or Auburn).

Once the feed is sent out via a satellite connection, the various stations, which are a part of the respective school’s network, will receive the signal and broadcast the game. At the studio, a host will run the broadcast and work through any issues that may occur.

“Anything that is done from an audio standpoint during a broadcast is controlled from the studio, the playing of a commercial or an interview, and as a studio host, I handle all of that,” York said.

“The glamorous part is that I do have some on-air segments such as score updates and recaps of what else will be going on later that day in the league.”

All of the commercials, known as billboards, in addition to all of the voicing and background sound, are produced by a team of full-time employees during the weeks leading up to the broadcasts in the Winston-Salem studios.

“The Talent”

For many who listen to an ISP broadcast, the central focus is the play-by-play announcer.

In the case of Wake Forest, Stan Cotten has become a well-respected member of the Demon Deacon family since his arrival in the fall of 1996.

For Cotten, whose office is located on the third floor the Miller Center, his role with the university often extends to opportunities away from the broadcast booth.

“A lot of the things I do aren’t spelled out in a contract. Basically, I’m an additional resource for the athletic department,” Cotten said.

“I also work with our stations and their contracts and try as best we can to try and get new stations to come into the network.”

Cotten is joined in the booth by his color commentating partners, former Wake Forest Football Assistant Coach Bill Urbanik (during football broadcasts) and veteran coach and NBA scout Mark Freidinger (during basketball season).

In addition to football and basketball broadcasts, Wake Forest baseball can also be heard throughout the spring on the Wake Forest ISP Sports Network.

The role of the network’s two main stations 98.1 WBRF in Galax, Va., and 101.1 WZTK in Burlington, N.C., cannot be underestimated as the opportunities for sports radio in mainstream radio continues to shrink in various markets.

“There are plenty of schools who want their games on the radio, but only a few stations willing to do sports,” Cotten said.

As the advent of the Internet continues its reach into almost every business market, Wake Forest is in a position to take advantage of newer technologies.

“For a school like Wake that doesn’t have a huge alumni base, the Internet and satellite radio will become more important as we see the landscape continue to change,” Cotton said.

Staying Put

As with many companies who have experienced tremendous growth, the opportunity to move on to a bigger market has been presented to the executives at ISP.

The idea was rejected as quickly as it was presented, in part due to the number of Wake Forest alumni who fill the offices, but also to a spirit of community and family that binds the people who work at ISP to Winston-Salem.

“When we started this company, this is where we wanted to be,” Merrifield said.

“As we’ve grown we’ve had opportunities to move to, Charlotte or Atlanta or another larger metropolitan area. But this is where we want to raise our kids. This is home.”