ESPN’s Digital Center-2, a 194,000-sq. foot, five-studio media facility, had its ceremonial opening today on the network’s Bristol campus. SportsCenter will be the first program to debut from the building known as “DC-2” in June, followed by the network’s NFL studio programming later this summer.
SportsCenter moves into its DC-2 studio from the original Digital Center’s Studio F, which was designed for three hours of live daily SportsCenter in 2004. The new studio can accommodate SportsCenter’s expansion to 18 live hours a day.
DC-2’s SportsCenter studio features a video floor, virtual technology, two touchscreens, a 56 LED multi-dimensional monitor wall and the ability to do live and pre-produced segments simultaneously.
ESPN Plaza includes 1.2 million square feet in 18 buildings on 123 acres.
The new SportsCenter set is divided by an enormous glass wall separating the 6,200-sq. foot Studio X, which will be home to those programs on ESPN and ESPN2, from the 3,500-sq.-foot Studio XA – The Annex – from where SportsCenter on ESPNEWS will originate. The center of The Annex will feature a large glass cube/work station, housing a new “SC Display Unit,” dedicated to overseeing what appears in the set’s 114 video and graphic display monitors.
The nearly 10,000-sq. foot SportsCenter studio is twice the size of the current studio and contains 100 more monitors than the original Digital Center studio which debuted in June 2004.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on national talk radio. Banks, a former contributor to NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, has been featured in numerous outlets including NFL.com, Forbes and the History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)