Universal Sports has moved into a new 40,000sq-ft HD production facility in Westlake Village, CA, where it is consolidating its TV and digital units that have been spread across two states.
The facility was originally conceived and built by Dole Food Chairman David Murdock to promote health and wellness programming but has sat idle for two years.
The move reflects the significant growth that Universal Sports, a joint venture between NBC Universal and InterMedia Partners, has experienced in the past year. The network, which seeks to promote good health and fitness through a variety of sports programming, can now be seen in more than 56 million homes across its TV, Internet and mobile video platforms. It will play a part on NBCU’s coverage of the Winter Olympics next month by presenting Olympic-related and lifestyle sports programming.
“We are very excited to be partnering with Universal Sports, not just at our production facility, but around the world, helping us deliver our message of good nutrition,” Murdock said in a statement. “One of my missions in life is to share this kind of knowledge with others, so they can live more vital, active, satisfying lives. Universal Sports will be a perfect platform to help us accomplish this.”
The new facilities contain HD production, control rooms, editing, sound and graphics facilities, with a 10,000sq-ft production area as well as a 6000sq-ft stage. Employees and facilities currently located in Santa Monica and Glendale, CA, as well as those in Bethesda, MD, have been relocated to the new Universal Sports Campus for 2010, with only a sales staff remaining in New York.
Universal Sports has selected Inlet Technologies’ Spinnaker and Armada encoding and streaming solutions to power UniversalSports.com’s live and on-demand coverage of the Olympics and other world-class sports.