TURNING BACK THE CLOCK.

• Author: Campbell, Spencer
• Position: STATE WIDE: Triad

Winston-Salem college-sports impresario Ben Sutton Jr. is back building businesses, this time as a private-equity investor. Teall Investments, founded by Sutton in 2016, plans to invest at least $65 million during its first funding round, which he expects to wrap up during the first quarter of 2018. (The name is short for "Touch 'em all," a baseball term for hitting a home run.)

In 1992, Sutton founded ISP Sports in Winston-Salem, where he had attended college at Wake Forest University. He grew that business, which handled marketing, licensing and media services, from a single school (his alma mater) to more than 60 colleges and universities before selling it to IMG Worldwide in 2010. That number grew to 225 at IMG College, the division that Sutton ran as chairman and CEO until 2015 when he became chairman emeritus. Sutton left IMG College for good in 2016. "After 20-plus years of growing, IMG wasn't going to invest in new platforms," says Sutton. "They needed a CEO to sustain the business. That didn't appeal to me."

Too young to retire, the 60-year-old Sutton says he's back doing what he loves--growing. Of Teall's eight employees, seven previously worked for IMG College, including General Counsel Lou Doherty and Chief Financial Officer Joe Weatherly.

"At the end of [2016] I thought, 'Well, if we can put the band back together, I have 20 ideas. We can pursue eight or nine of them.'" The winning concept proved to be Teall, which has already invested in or acquired several companies, including Opelika, Ala.-based Tailgate Guys, a hospitality business that provides tents, catering and other game-day services for tailgaters...